Attending Fuckface Academy
by 4pollos
Summary: Toki Wartooth, a stoner skater boy with a terrible home life, falls in love with the lead guitarist of a grunge band, the beautiful and foreign Skwisgaar Skwigelf. Oh, and the other guys do some stuff, too. AU.
1. Sunday

I feel like I should apologize for this.

Yes, it is a _high school AU_. The main pairing is Skwisgaar/Toki by far, but there are other ones that I will not specify because they are either surprises or spoilers, depending on how you look at it. The rating will remain at a T, and it will follow all the conventions of your average high school AU, so without further ado, I present to you (the first chapter of) Attending Fuckface Academy.

* * *

Toki Wartooth had been alive for sixteen years, one month, one week, and five days, but he would argue that his life did not truly _begin _until a lazy Sunday afternoon. He had been alive, yes, but he had not been _living, _or at least had no will to do so. He was a supine teenage boy who wore his hair too long, irking his parents, and who dreamed vaguely of escaping from the suburbs of Florida. He skated and sweated, skinned knees pouring out of ripped jeans, hot sun burning the top of his head and humid air sticking to his skin—not a life worth giving a hundred percent to living, not quite. He hung out with an equally ragtag group of friends, but—he was restless, listless as times, ready to jump out of his own skin. Much like an oppressed princess locked in a looming tower, he was stuck wondering when his life would begin and in a lazy Sunday afternoon he found his answer, even if he had not known it yet.

It had been Murderface who announced the band. Fuckface Academy was rumored to be the next Nirvana or the next TAD amongst the local scene, depending on how obscure you liked your grunge, and they were apparently totally brutal, despite not being a metal band—which had been the first thing Nathan had complained about. Regardless, Murderface burst through the door with excitement exuding off of him, getting Toki amped up in the process. Nathan and Pickles were immune to Murderface's contagious emotional states, as Nathan had the tendency of being apathetic to everything and Pickles of being too high to really care, and did not react to Murderface in any noticeable manner. Nonetheless, Nathan heard the word "grunge", looked up from the magazine he'd been reading prior to Murderface's entrance, and said, "Grunge? Not metal or brutal. So, not worth my time."

"They are called," Murderface said, hands moving up and down with overdramatic emphasis that made a rather stoned Pickles snort hard, "Fucking _Fuckface Academy. _Tell me that that'sch not brutal as _schit_. It'sch fucking brutal asch pisch, that'sch what it isch. Pisch, Nathan. Pisch!"

"Yeah, the name's pretty brutal, I wasn't disagreeing with that," Nathan said, "but grunge?"

Murderface continued to babble, ignoring Nathan's protests. "Plusch, Dick knowsch a guy that could get usch in for free," he went on, still accompanying his words with the hand motions—hands tilted on their sides, thumbs sticking straight up, slicing through the air slowly up and down. He looked ridiculous: his hair was frizzy from the high humidity and he was wheezing, out of breath and damp with sweat from the act of running up the stairs and bursting through the door. Pickles couldn't stop giggling every time he looked at Murderface, a calamity he fell victim to often while intoxicated.

Murderface appeared to be quite keen on this band, so Toki leapt in in defense of his friend. "Sounds cool to Toki," he said, inhaling some of the joint Pickles had just passed him. He wasn't even buzzed yet, but was bored, and Pickles always had the best weed. His brother dealt it and Pickles stole it; such was life.

"When's the show?" Pickles asked, drawing out the oin _show. _Toki wasn't sure if it was because he was stoned or because of his accent, as Pickles and his family were originally from Wisconsin, but he laughed anyway.

"Nescht weekend," Murderface said. "And. We. Are. Going." He punctuated each word with a dramatic slamming of his hands in midair. Toki tried to pass the joint back to Pickles, but Pickles was convulsing with laughter in a way that reminded Toki of a dog having a seizure, so he instead placed it on the tray beside Pickles's thigh and patted the ground to let Pickles know it was there.

"I mean I guess we can go," Nathan said, sighing and blowing a piece of his hair away from his face. "There're no metal bands in town or anything."

"I don't know if _I_ can," Toki said, frowning. He didn't have anything to do, as always, but his parents liked to block the majority of his attempts to escape the house. Even when he had done all of his chores for the next month in a few days like he did when he really wanted something, his parents would still gaze at him in a way that would make him feel all of two feet tall. He would know that this gaze meant no. He would spend the rest of the day in misery, nursing his broken hope, and he really did not want to experience that feeling again. If he had to turn down a social invitation, oh well; there would always be another one and he would rather feel lonely by choice instead of lonely by force.

"I'll have my mom talk to yours or whatever." This was not a sentence that needed any particularly tragic infliction, but Nathan still applied some in a way that would be more apt if he were describing a grueling, Herculean task. Pickles doubled over in wheezy laughter but was largely ignored otherwise. He passed the joint back to Toki as he wiped tears from his eyes and muttered "Oh, _Nathan" _over and over again under his breath.

"Aweschome!" Murderface looked as if he was going to jump in celebration; however, Murderface was the type of person who didn't care for excessive physical movement, so he instead took a seat in Nathan's computer chair.

It was in Nathan's room that they had been sitting. Nathan's parents were the most relaxed of the group's and let Nathan listen to death metal on maximum volume while Pickles passed a blunt back and forth between himself and Toki, though they were kind enough to smoke it out the bedroom window. Nathan lived between two sets of frat boy types and neither party minded the music or marijuana, which was pretty cool. Nathan's parents also had a soothing effect on Toki's, and his was the only house he was allowed to frequent. Toki was okay with that, as Pickles's home was filled with drunken shouting most of the time and Murderface's grandparents were downright frightening. He preferred the familiar comfort of Nathan's solitary two-story house with the fenced-in backyard and the sounds of a neighborhood—a lawnmower purring, birds chirping, children playing—leaking in through the window. A benevolent atmosphere possessed Nathan's room despite the walls painted gray and cluttered with intimidating death metal posters that stared down, brutal musicians begging to be fucked with. Toki was sitting on the floor near the computer chair, under the windowsill on its right side, with Pickles sitting to Toki's left. Pickles was leaning against the wall with top of his head just underneath the windowsill, his dreadlocks sticking out at odd angles. Nathan was on his bed, the motorcycle magazine he'd been reading when Murderface came in lying discarded at his feet. He had his hands and arms draped over his knees, his black nail polish accentuated by the drab lighting in his room (even with the window open), and was wearing his reading glasses low on his nose.

There was a momentary lapse in conversation.

Nathan picked his magazine up once more and reclined on the bed with his head on the headboard and back nestled into the pillows. Nathan's bed set was custom-ordered, black with an anarchy symbol sprawled over the comforter and pentagrams displayed proudly on the pillows, though he employed standard red sheets beneath them. Nathan's bed was huge, and though it was pushed into a corner between two walls, it took up the majority of space in the room. Toki found himself in envious awe of Nathan's bed, even more so when he was stoned—between the worn-in comfort of the mattress and the brutal bed set, he wished he could have something as personalized in his own room. Lacking inhibitions, he stared at the way the comforter hung over the side with his mouth slightly open, eyes wide.

A halfhearted breeze coasted through the window, causing the curtains to pulsate forward. Pickles cursed as a curtain hit the back of his head and jumped forward with a yelp; Toki, momentarily distracted from the amazing bed, laughed. Pickles rubbed the back of his head as if the curtain (which had now returned to its place in front of the window) had seriously hurt him and sent Toki a self-deprecating grin that was more in the eyes than in the mouth. Toki returned the expression but broke it when Pickles went to roll another joint and instead he returned to his silent admiration of Nathan's bed.

Murderface had used the lull in conversation to swivel around on the computer chair and begin using Nathan's computer. The soft pattering of heavy fingers skirting over a keyboard joined the typical noises of Nathan's suburban neighborhood. Sundays were like this: without effort, sitting in mutual silence with one another, enjoying their respective activities together without infringing on the others. Toki smiled to himself, letting his thoughts bubble up in his throat and allowing his tongue to push the words forward.

"I think that Sunday is my favorite day," Toki said. He felt very warm—either because of the weather or because of the drugs, he couldn't tell—but cozy.

"Why's that, Toki?" Nathan asked. He licked his index finger and flipped the page of his magazine, staring down his nose at the page. He did not take his eyes from it as he asked the question.

Toki furrowed his brow. He was unable to articulate the precise way in which Sunday was his favorite, could not adequately bottle up the complacency deep in his chest in words, and thus settled for a mere, "I like it."

"Good for you," Nathan said. He turned another page in his magazine.

"Yeah, good for you," Pickles said, nodding his head up and down with a joint trapped between his lips. He pulled it out, examined it briefly, and then set it down on the tray.

"Thanks guys," Toki sighed. Nobody moved to continue the conversation, so Toki took it upon himself. "I think I would like it more, maybe, if it wasn't for going to church. Maybe Sundays would be my double favorites then."

"Church isch gay," Murderface stated. He swiveled around on his chair, planted his feet on the ground, and crossed his arms over his ample belly. His shirt had ridden up, exposing an expanse of doughy, hairy flesh that Pickles was staring in horror at with his mouth open and head tilted.

"It isn't that bad," Toki said, staring down at his chest sadly. He was sitting with his legs spread straight in front of him, slightly parted, and his hands by his thighs, so he had a good vantage to observe his outfit. He was still in his church clothes: khakis, ugly brown shoes, and a pastel-striped polo shirt. Toki did not find church clothes to be anything as much as he did pathetically depressing. The pastel colors reminded him of pills, and not the fun kind, while the khakis and shoes reminded him of old people. He could not come up with any particular reason why church wasn't bad, though he could come up with many why it _was_, so he let the sentence hang in the air. He accepted the joint when Pickles picked it up and passed it to him with a look that clearly said _you need this._ He took a hit.

"No, dood," Pickles said as he patted Toki's arm with exaggerated sympathy sketched in every corner of his face, "it's pretty bad."

"Yeah, church sucks," Nathan added. "When I was a kid my parents would make me go on, like, Christmas and Easter and shit. Now they're just like, whatever, and I can stay home."

Toki sighed. "I wish my parents would just be like, whatever." The adamancy that his parents forced him to attend church with was frightening, but understandable. His father had relocated from Norway to America with the expansion of his religion, and Toki understood that it was important to his parents. He just wanted his parents to understand that church wasn't important to him. He didn't have words to describe what he was, but he believed in nothing, that life was meaningless and the only purpose—if you could even call it that—was destruction. He occasionally entertained the notion that the Norse myths of ancient were true but overall, he didn't believe.

"Me too, dood," Pickles said slowly, heaviness in his voice indicative that he thought of this as a great revelation, "me too."

"I don't know, man," Murderface said; he was still sitting with his arms over his belly and legs spread wide open. "I think church isch for fagsch. My grandparentsch never made me do that schit." He wore a smug grin. Toki would normally feel slight annoyance tugging at his midsection when Murderface bragged, but he had to admit that not being forced to go to church was something to brag about.

"Lucky you." Nathan shrugged.

"Yeah," Murderface said, drawing the word out and narrowing his eyes, "lucky _me._"

"Is that supposed to mean something?" Nathan finally looked up from his magazine. He turned his head to give Murderface a glare that made Toki quibble.

"Nope," Murderface replied. He waved his hand in the air and kicked off with his foot. He spun in the chair for a while, kicking off with his foot every time he completed a circle, until he slowed and turned so that his body was facing the computer once more. Toki stared at Murderface, mesmerized by this action.

"Thought so," Nathan muttered. He returned to his magazine.

Toki turned his head to attempt to see what Murderface was doing on the computer but had no such luck, the awkward angle his body was at and Murderface's general hugeness blocking him. Murderface was typing hard, however, and this caught Toki's interest. "What are you doing, Murderface?" he asked. Pickles passed the joint again and Toki reached out his arm to take it, not turning his head.

"Googling Fuckface Academy, that'sch what'sch I'm doing," Murderface responded. He rolled backwards at an angle so Toki could see the screen, which was just the Google search results page that he couldn't even read. Toki got up and straightened his khakis out. He walked over to the computer on Murderface's right side and grabbed the mouse. The results that came up were a MySpace page for the band at the top, followed by a Facebook page. Below that were things that were more collections of words than actual websites.

Toki opened the MySpace page. The profile was elementary, standard black and gray with red accents. There was a picture of the band—they looked like typical grunge musicians, four guys in stonewashed genes and oversized shirts with various eccentric hairstyles—that was not noteworthy in any way. They had a few songs up with names like "Fuck Love, Let's Fuck" and "Bite Me Baby" but Nathan's speakers were blown from listening to death metal at maximum volume so Toki couldn't play them. The songs had an average of five hundred plays each—one called "Superhuman" had over a thousand, whereas a cover of The Pixies's "Where Is My Mind" only had a hundred and forty-nine—which seemed unremarkable yet not pathetic. The MySpace page gave Toki the information that they were a local band from one town over, had been playing together for six months, and drew their inspiration from the likes of the typical grunge band inspirations: Nirvana, The Pixies, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, so on and so forth.

He traversed to the Facebook page next, which was more of the same. He saw that they had played a list of shows at various taverns, bars, and festivals, nothing too special but nothing too pitiful, a respectable list overall. Toki did not really know how to work Facebook—he was forbidden to even have a computer—and grew tired of the site quickly. Satisfied with the information of what Murderface had been up to and with his newfound knowledge of Fuckface Academy he backed up, letting Murderface slide back in front of the desk, and sat back down by the windowsill. He denied the joint when Pickles offered it this time; he was high enough for now.

"Doesch anybody have headphonesch?" Murderface asked from the computer. Toki could see that he was back on the band's MySpace page, with the help of his and Murderface's different sitting arrangements.

"No," Toki said. He was not allowed to have anything that would require headphones.

"Sorry, busted mine," Nathan grunted from the bed. He had abandoned his magazine and was texting, eyes narrowed at the screen, thumbs moving sluggishly.

Pickles did not bother to respond, as he had slumped into a stupor. His lips were parted and his eyes unfocused, the last joint burning between his fingers. Toki took it from his hands and extinguished it before setting it on the tray, seeing that Pickles was high enough for now, also. Nathan wasn't one for marijuana, preferring hard liquor; Murderface was the same way, though he went through week-long, whiny cycles of trying to get clean that were ultimately useless.

"Dammit," Murderface cursed. "I juscht want to know if thesche guysch are good." Toki watched him close the window. Nathan's computer background, a collage of metal bands accompanied by their illegible logos, replaced it.

"You can look up shitty grunge music on your own time," Nathan said. He sighed as his phone buzzed and played the opening twenty seconds to Cannibal Corpse's _Hammer Smashed Face _before picking it up like it weighed a hundred pounds and hated him. He made dramatic noises of varying levels of loudness as he texted and flung the phone to the foot of the bed when he was finished.

Murderface rose from the computer and stretched, once again exposing his belly. He ignored Nathan's comment of "You need a longer shirt, seriously" and walked around the room aimlessly, heavy combat boots making hard noises on the wooden floor. He stopped and tittered at miscellaneous things in Nathan's room: the door to his closet, halfway open and exposing a row of shirts in muted colors, a poster with peeling corners, a lamp in the corner. He left the room at one point, announcing that he was going to get food. Toki listened to his footsteps on the stairs, thinking vaguely of how they were like a monster's and scaring himself a little with the thought that Murderface was a monster in disguise.

Nathan's phone buzzed and rang and once again he texted in his overdramatic manner. Toki thought briefly of asking what was wrong but decided against it. Pickles was beginning to wake from his stupor, limbs twitching and eyes snapping back to focus. Toki ran a hand through his hair and felt thankful that he had at least took it out of the braid that his mother forced upon him when they went to church on the walk to Nathan's house. His hair had loose waves in it from the braid, but the guys didn't care to call him out on it; Toki doubted that they even noticed. Toki himself didn't mind the braid, especially in the heat, but he knew the guys would; Murderface would probably declare it gay if he knew. Or perhaps that wouldn't mean anything, as Murderface declared _everything _gay. Toki was beginning to confuse himself and took his hand away from his hair, clearing his head of the thoughts.

Murderface returned with his arms full of junk food. Pickles shot up, beaming; Toki and Nathan followed considerably more slowly. Pickles grabbed a box of oatmeal cream pies; Toki went for a share size bag of M&M's and a box of milk duds; Nathan ripped a bag of chips, plain Lays, from Murderface's arms. Murderface dumped the remaining food in the middle of the room and selected a Snickers bar for himself, unwrapping it and taking a huge bite, chewing loudly. He sat down by the pile of food. The combination of the Explosions' love of junk food and Halloween on the horizon proved to be a wonderful thing to a group of bored teenage boys, half of them suffering from the munchies and the other half possessing huge appetites regardless.

Pickles popped an oatmeal cream pie in his mouth full and spoke through the mess of cream and pie. "Dood. This is great."

"I love candy," Toki said, nodding his head. His mouth was full of M he was dumping them straight into his open mouth, shaking the bag with vigor.

"I love _food,_" Pickles responded. He swallowed the oatmeal cream pie and went on to opening another. "I want to marry the metaphysical entity of food. Is that legal? That should be legal."

"Petition it," Nathan suggested. He was resting on the bed and texting again, the bag of chips unopened by his side and face knitted up in concentration.

Murderface snorted and reached forward to grab a bag of Doritos. "Ah, the schtupid schit people schay when they're high. That'sch why I don't schmoke."

"You don't smoke 'cause your grandma would kick your ass if you did," Nathan said, looking smug when Toki and Pickles both laughed at this. His phone buzzed again; he groaned loudly and threw it across his bed, not even bothering to look to see whoever texted him whatever. He proceeded to open his chips with a look on his face like he just found God.

"Hey!" Murderface shouted, scowling and spewing Dorito crumbs everywhere. Toki, repulsed, slowed his chewing of the M&M's down.

The four of them sat in not-silence—they were all noisy eaters, happily clamping and smacking and sighing with the bliss of junk food—as they ate. In contrast to the M&M's, which Toki had shoveled in his mouth greedily, pushing the candy to the sides of his cheeks and chewing fast, Toki ate the Milk Duds one by one. Some he sucked the chocolate off before popping them on his tongue, others he plopped right in. The chocolate melted on his fingers and he paused every ten or so Milk Duds to lick it off and then wipe his fingers on the wall behind him. It wasn't exactly sanitary, but Toki couldn't afford to ruin his church clothes. Pickles ate the whole box of oatmeal cream pies and relaxed, hands on his stomach and licking his lips. Murderface gnawed his way through the Doritos as Nathan ate his chips slowly, examining each individual chip before bringing it to his mouth and indulging.

They did not finish the pile of junk food, nor had they expected to. It was a little after one in the afternoon, sun, temperature and humidity high. The children that had been shrieking in the streets had retreated inside for lunch, afternoon television, and naps; the same could be said for the adults who didn't have yard work to do or cars to wash. Toki was beginning to slip into a somnolent state, belly full of candy and eyelids drooping. He would've been happy to sleep right here, underneath the windowsill in Nathan's bedroom, for a few hours. He did sometimes take naps when he came over—he wasn't allowed to take them at home—and had decided that today would be a good day for a nap when Pickles stood up.

Pickles wiped crumbs from his shirt and shorts before speaking. "Are we gonna get lunch?"

"Lunch?" Nathan asked, perking up. His phone had gone off five times since he'd thrown it to the edge of the bed, but he'd been doing a good job of ignoring it in favor of his chips. The promise of more food trumped any food he was currently eating.

"Yeah, lunch. We gonna eat it or what?" Pickles had now moved on to straightening his dreads. He'd dreaded his hair recently, a decision he made while drunk and high off some mushrooms that Murderface had wanted to experiment with. Pickles had a different smell now, mustier, and he had admitted before that his mother was forcing him to use a special dreadlock shampoo.

"I mean, I guess we can." Nathan shrugged and put his chips and turned off the lamp on the nightstand. He slid his reading glasses down his nose, opening the lone drawer and depositing them inside. "Do you want to go to a restaurant or eat inside or what? My parents aren't home so my mom can't cook for us."

Murderface's contribution to the conversation was an exclamation of "Taco Bell!" followed by a spray of crumbs. Pickles laughed before making a repulsed face, stretching in the middle of the room. Murderface clambered to get up, discarding his bag of chips, swallowing the rest of his food, and moving closer to the door.

"Taco Bell fucking sucks," Nathan said.

"I agree, dood," Pickles added, shooting Murderface a look. Murderface sneered back. He was still gravitating towards the door, obviously trying to get the other three to follow him.

"I want to go to, like. Fucking Dimmu Burger," Nathan said. He sat up on his bed, one hand bracing the edge of the mattress.

"Dimmu Burger would be good, yeah," Pickles said. With this confirmation, Nathan got all the way up and stretched.

"Dimmu Burger it is. Toki, you coming with?" Pickles yawned and rotated his body around to look at Toki, eyes half-lidded. This was how these types of things usually went down: Nathan and Pickles made decisions; Murderface argued with them; Toki went along with whatever they wanted to do. It tended to be for the best; Toki tended to only want to go to the skate park and Murderface to the beach, as he was convinced that this was the location he had the best chance of getting laid at. While Toki was occasionally indulged in the skate park—Nathan, Murderface, and Pickles would get drunk with the other teenagers toward the back while Toki would skateboard by himself, content to do so—everybody hated the beach. Toki didn't like wearing any less clothing than he usually did, Nathan didn't like going outside, and Pickles was very Irish.

"Yeah," Toki sighed. He got up off the floor. Food would make him less sleepy.

Murderface, still lingering close to the doorway, pulled his phone from his pocket. "Hey, I'm gonna tescht Dick—"

"No you're not," Nathan growled. He snatched Murderface's phone and pocketed it before walking over to his bed and grabbing his own phone with a moan, treating it like a clingy girlfriend he couldn't get rid of.

"You guysch always invite Charlesch to schit!" Murderface whined. He took half-steps towards Nathan, reaching out his arm halfway, bemoaning the loss of his phone. Murderface had a shit phone, three years old with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard crusted with crumbs, but he was in love with the thing.

"That's different," Pickles said. He crossed his arms. Pickles was shorter than Murderface—Pickles was just _short_—but with his head lowered to his chest like that, he seemed to tower above him. "We all like Charles. _Nobody likes Dick._"

Murderface snorted, anger forgotten in lieu of Pickles's poor choice of phrasing. Pickles uncrossed his arms and smiled. Nathan reached in the pocket of his jeans and handed Murderface back his phone with a testy look. Murderface took his phone, looked at it once sadly, and then slid it into to the pocket of his shorts.

"I'm driving," Nathan announced, though nobody was about to protest it. Nathan, a year older due to his failure of the third grade, was the only licensed driver in the group. Pickles was sixteen, his birthday in the early fall, but hadn't bothered to even get his permit since everybody he hung around had their licenses; Murderface was still fifteen, his birthday in December, but he'd put off getting his permit until June; Toki wasn't allowed to drive. Nathan had a four-door truck, an old, rusted thing that was on its last limb, but it fit them all and was good enough to drive them from his house to Dimmu Burger. They exited Nathan's room single-file, Nathan heading the way with Pickles stumbling behind him, then Murderface, then Toki. They walked down the stairs this way and clustered together more at the bottom. Pickles kept tripping over his feet and laughing at it, which made Toki laugh in turn. Nathan chuckled a few times; Murderface returned to pouting. Nathan grabbed the keys by the door in the kitchen and off they were.

Pickles rode shotgun like always. Toki sat behind the driver's seat with Murderface on the other side of the truck. The drive to the good Dimmu Burger, not the one with the wonky fries and cashiers who gave them the evil-eye when they walked in stoned, took about ten minutes. Toki passed the time by staring out the window, which was rolled down like all the others, wind whistling in his ears. Nathan was a fast driver, though a surprisingly competent one and everything seemed to blur past. It did not help that Toki was stoned, nor did it help that this part of Florida looked exactly the same no matter where you went: buildings low and painted in happy colors, assorted trees dotting the edge of the road, the roads wide, in need of a good pave, and sweltering in the heat. Nathan blasted death metal. The best thing about his truck was that he had replaced the speakers with top-of-the-line, expensive models and had installed a CD player. They barely hit any lights and traffic was typical for a Sunday afternoon, slow and scarce. Nathan flipped the bird at somebody that cut him off and his phone buzzed three times in five minutes before laying silent, but it was otherwise an uneventful drive. Nobody could talk over the music, but Pickles was finding things to giggle at in the front seat and Murderface was either texting or on the internet with his phone.

Nathan pulled into the parking lot of Dimmu Burger and waited out the drum solo on the song that was playing—Toki didn't particularly care for it, but it was one of Nathan's favorites—before turning the car off. They spilled out of the car and Pickles fell, tripping while he tried to climb down. Murderface shook with laughter while Pickles let out a string of curses. He'd fallen on all fours and rubbed alternatively at the heel of his hands and scraped knees as they walked into the Dimmu Burger. Nathan gave him a single sympathetic look and Pickles suffered in silence. Falling when getting out of the trunk was something Pickles did with regularity, especially when intoxicated: the truck was high off the ground, Pickles was not.

Dimmu Burger was full. There were a cluster of ten-to-twelve-year-old boys in green and white soccer uniforms in one corner, their moms chatting away over salads and diet sodas, and a couple of teenagers Toki didn't know in another. People of various kinds were scattered throughout the tables otherwise. They approached the counter, where a bored-looking cashier stood, a button declaring that they'd just installed a happy hour for all beverages—milkshakes included!—shining on her lapel. Nathan ordered first, followed by Pickles, then Murderface, and lastly Toki, who ordered chicken nuggets instead of burgers like the other guys had gotten. Toki wasn't allowed to have money on him, and it was Pickles's turn to pay for his expenses. Toki felt a tug of guilt in his gut as he watched Pickles hand over the bills, but nobody spoke about the money thing to Toki. He assumed they had worked out a schedule between them early on in the friendship after Toki kept not eating whenever they were out together, as even Murderface would pay for him on occasion.

They sat at a table by a window facing the front of the building, Toki sledged between the wall and Murderface. Toki wanted to pick at his chicken nuggets drowsily, taking dainty bites and resting his elbow on the table with his head cradled in his hand, but his hunger got the best of him. Toki ate nugget after nugget until they were gone and then moved onto his fries, sucking down his soda. When he finished his food he reached across and plucked some of Murderface's fries, plopping them into his mouth with a shit-eating grin.

"Lay off!" Murderface screeched. He pulled his fries to his other side of his food. Pickles cracked up; Nathan laughed a little. Pickles was done with his food, finishing before even Toki, but Nathan was a slow eater, only halfway through his burger.

"Like you really fucking need them," Nathan said. In the corner, the gaggle of soccer moms sent a collective glare at Nathan. He flipped them off; their jaws dropped in unison.

Nathan's phone, which had been resting on the table by his food, buzzed not once, but three times in a row. Nathan groaned and picked it up and looked at his new messages before setting them back down again. He let out a "Jesus fucking Christ" under his breath before bringing his burger to his mouth again and taking a huge bite.

"Who keeps texting you?" Pickles asked, looking at the phone without trust. He had been holding his own phone in one hand, his elbow up on the table and head resting in his other hand, scrolling through something with his thumb on the screen. Pickles had the most recent iPhone, a gift from his brother for his sixteenth birthday, surely bought with drug money. Pickles was convinced that Seth had an ulterior motive behind the gift but he hadn't been able to figure out what it was yet. In the meantime, he was happy to use it.

"Fucking Charles and Abigail," Nathan muttered between bites of hamburger. The food obscured his expression for the most part, so Toki couldn't tell why this fact was so bothersome to him. Toki knew Charles well, since Charles was Nathan's old friend from before he failed the third grade, but he didn't know Abigail, not really. Nathan didn't bring her to group outings, only hanging out with her in the foursome of Nathan, Charles, Pickles, and Abigail. Toki knew there was some drama going on between the four of them, could tell by the way Pickles's mouth thinned when Abigail was bought up and the insane amounts of texting that had been occurring recently, but Toki was too polite to investigate further, no matter how curious he might have been.

"Neither of them text that much, dood. I would know," Pickles remarked. He pointed at Nathan's phone, which buzzed then again. Pickles leapt in his seat. "Holy shit, I'm magical!"

Nathan ignored the coincidence and shrugged, the burger still between his hands. "I don't know why they've been texting me so much. I fucking hate it, though. I want to end it but they just keep texting me."

"Poor you, with all your friends teschting you," Murderface growled. "I think the phrasche isch 'blowing up your phone'? What a schame." Murderface's comments went unaddressed; he stuffed his face huffily.

"Toki, you're awfully quiet," Pickles said. He appeared to be making a point of not responding to Nathan. He pointed at Toki this time, who did not buzz and start playing the opening 20 seconds of _Hammer Smashed Face._ Pickles actually seemed relatively disappointed by this fact.

"He gets like this when he's stoned," Nathan explained. He had finished his burger and was onto his fries now. "Depressed and shit."

"I am not _depressed_," Toki said. "I'm tired." It was true; the food had not woken him up. He knew he would have to return home soon, but he did not want to. He wanted to curl up into a bed and fall asleep for a refreshing afternoon nap, maybe dream a pleasant little dream. He also really wanted to listen to some electronica, but Nathan and Murderface hated it, and it's not like Toki had a way to play his own music.

"Then schleep," Murderface suggested, placing a fry in his mouth.

"Yeah, he's going to sleep in the middle of fucking Dimmu Burger," Nathan said. "What are you, stupid? Don't answer that. We know you are."

"Fuck you," Murderface replied, almost lazily, waving a fry around in the air. He was sitting at an angle, half of his body pressed into the booth while facing the conversation.

"I think I'm going to have to go home after lunch," Toki sighed. He stared down at the table, not wanting to meet the other's eyes. He lifted his head to look at Nathan. "Will you take me home after lunch?"

"You don't want to stay for dinner? It's macaroni and cheese night," Nathan said.

Toki weighed his options. He loved Nathan's mother's cooking, especially her macaroni and cheese, but he had stayed for dinner yesterday. Tomorrow was a school day. He hadn't done his Sunday chores yet. He could escape for a few hours after church, but he knew that his parents would want him home soon, and he didn't want to anger them—especially not if he was going to be attending the Fuckface Academy concert next weekend. Perhaps he would even be able to stay the night at Nathan's if he was good enough this week, would be able to stumble in drunk and high and pass out on the floor with Murderface and Pickles while Nathan would sleep until soberness on the bed. A week from now he could be able to play video games with them on Nathan's ridiculously large flat-screen T.V. in the living room, eating Nathan's mother's cookies, the chocolate chip ones she always made when Nathan's friend stayed over. All if he went home after lunch.

"I can't," Toki said. He wondered what he'd be having for dinner at home. Today was Sunday, so probably some sort of elaborate Norwegian dish that his mother had started preparing after church. Toki's mother was a passable cook and he liked Norwegian food more than he liked American food, but he would still rather be eating with a group of friends, talking loudly and happily instead of sitting in silence. He could only comfort himself with the thought that a week from now, he'd be happy.

"Can I stay for dinner?" Pickles asked. "Fucking love your mom's macaroni and cheese, man." Nathan, mouth full of the last of his fries, grunted in response to this and nodded his head.

"Me too," Murderface said. "I'd love to schtay, but I promisched Dick we'd do schomething later. Scho I'll need you to drop me off at Dick'sch." He put his arms behind his head and stretched in the booth, making smacking noises with his mouth and clearly trying to impress the others with the fact that he'd made plans. The others were not impressed; Dick Knubbler was Murderface's only other friend besides the four of them, and the guy was insane, not really a friend to brag about having. Nonetheless, Murderface arched his eyebrows and gave them a look like he was gracing them with his presence by choosing to hang out with them instead of Dick Knubbler.

"You can drop your own goddamn self off at Dick's," Nathan said.

Murderface sneered. "I'll have him pick me up, then," he said, reaching out to grab his phone and text Knubbler.

Nathan was the last to finish his food and when he did they all got up to throw the wrappers away. The other guys kept their drinks but Toki threw his in the bin, knowing his parents would be mad if they saw him with it and not wanting to litter in Nathan's truck. They bustled out of Dimmu Burger, earning evil stares from the soccer moms who were still there for speaking so vulgarly in earshot of their precious children.

"Your kids probably say worse shit when you're not around," Nathan remarked to them as they exited the restaurant. The soccer moms gasped and glared as soccer moms do, turning to their boys, presumably to ask them if they did, indeed, say worse things when their mothers weren't around. Toki looked over his shoulder before walking out the door to see the boys giving sheepish grins at their mothers and at each other.

Toki lived in a neighborhood closer to the north side of town. It was a nice neighborhood but was populated mostly by older, richer folks, the type that paid people to do their lawns perfectly. Toki did all of the yard work himself, every Sunday, and that was what he had to look forward to when he got home: backbreaking labor in the heavy heat for four hours, as it after two o'clock now, before dinner. He spent the ride to his house in sulking silence while Nathan, Pickles, and Murderface engaged themselves in a debate over whether the new or old lead guitarist for some metal band Toki had never heard of was better. Murderface was trying to insist that the old was superior while Nathan and Pickles were on the newer one's side. They were shouting over the music from the band they were shouting about, turned down lower than usual so they could hear each other but still playing loud, throbbing in Toki's head. Pickles was whipping his head back from Murderface to Nathan, dreads bouncing around his shoulders; Murderface was leaning forward in his seat, seatbelt straining against his chest; Nathan's eyes were glued to the road but he was still participating in their debate. If Nathan's phone went off, it was lost in the discord.

Nathan eventually pulled up to Toki's house and put the truck in park against the curve. Both of his parents' cars were in the driveway, leaving no room for Nathan's truck. Toki's house was a standard two-story, painted a muted orange-brown color, windows obscured with curtains on the inside. It was a showy house, decorated with masonry, an exemplary Floridian home. Toki sort of hated it.

He undid his seatbelt and had his hand on the door to the truck when Nathan said, "We'll see you Saturday, yeah?"

"I hope so," Toki said. He opened the door. "Just—just have your mom call mine, okay?"

"'Kay," Nathan said. "See you."

"Bye, Toki," Pickles and Murderface said at the same time. Murderface had to add, "Keep care," and then Pickles had to say, "Make good decisions" with sarcasm in his voice, and Murderface was opening his mouth to say something else when Toki got out of the truck and shut the door. Nathan wasted no time in pulling out, speeding down the road. Toki watched as his truck bounced away, the metal music flowing through the windows disrupting the otherwise quiet of his neighborhood.

He walked up the driveway to his front door and reached into his pocket for the key. He took off his shoes immediately when inside, depositing them in their neat place in line with the rest of his shoes by the doorway. He called out that he was home in Norwegian, hoping somebody heard him and not expecting to get a response. He walked through the sitting room to get to the stairs, and then went up to his room. He changed from his church clothes and folded them neatly in the laundry basket before switching into athletic shorts and a white t-shirt. He pulled his hair up, getting it off his neck in preparation for the heat. He looked at himself in the mirror hanging on his wall before walking back out of his room. He didn't look unusual enough to get in trouble for doing drugs, but his parents were sort of oblivious to that kind of thing anyway, and he'd never got in trouble for it before.

He went into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge and found his mother standing over the stove. He still thought that his parents looked awkward in American clothing; they had ditched the robes and such when they moved, in order to blend in better. His mother was wearing a long dress with long sleeves, her hair pulled back with a scarf, but she still looked odd and unlike the woman Toki had grown up with. She didn't say anything or even turn her head as Toki got his water, though he wasn't expecting her to. His parents rarely spoke to him because of their vow of silence; his parents rarely paid attention to him because they were his parents.

He figured that his father was in his office since his car was home and that meant he couldn't be at church, and Toki wasn't about to greet him. He went out through the front door, pulling on his ratty old athletic sneakers, and walked around to open the garage. His Sunday chores involved doing the yard work, cleaning out the gutters, and tidying up the garage. He took a swig from his water bottle and set it down on the unused workbench in the garage and then pulled the lawnmower out, starting it up. He'd forgotten his sunglasses and there wasn't a cloud in the sky but he squinted his eyes and suffered through it, knowing he'd get in trouble if he went back in before finishing his chores or getting called for dinner. So he began to mow the yard, going in careful lines, already sweating beneath his clothes. The smell of gasoline was strong, hanging in the air. For October it was hot outside and he knew it wouldn't begin to truly cool down until late November, winter coming full-force (weakly, in comparison to the harsh Norwegian weather he'd been conditioned in) in January.

While he mowed, a mechanical task requiring no thought but to scan the ground to make sure there were no obstacles in his way, he thought. He had homework to do tonight, bookwork for math, questions for history, and a chapter to read for English. It wasn't that much and about the workload he did regularly. He wasn't in any advanced classes and got passing grades in the ones he took. It wasn't that he was unintelligent (though he was generally average) but that he didn't put a lot of effort into school. He didn't care about it, didn't put any thought towards his future or what he wanted to be when he grew up. He was relatively sure that his parents wanted him to join the church, but that wasn't going to happen. He had every intention of moving the fuck out when he turned eighteen, though he didn't know where was going to go. He figured he would get a job and an apartment somewhere, but it wasn't so much the technicalities as getting out of the house, being free. Freedom was what he craved above all, and the desire of it was what he blamed the restless feeling he so often fell victim to on. He was beginning to feel it now, annoyance wrapping around his body at the fact that he was stuck on a Sunday afternoon confined to his chores. It wasn't even the chores, which were standard and harmless compared to the other things his parents had him sometimes do—it was the fact that this was what he spent all of his time doing, working for his parents, even when he was younger. He was older now, stronger, and living in the suburbs, a stark contrast to Norway. He didn't have to lug firewood up hills in skimpy clothes with snow slamming down around him as a skinny eight-year-old, wasn't being pushed into punishment holes, but he still had to do everything for his parents while they did nothing for him with the exception of the womanly duties that his mother performed. Every day was a blur of school and chores, sometimes punishment, sometimes wiggling free to hang out with his friends and he hated it, and this line of thought had bought the itchy feeling underneath his skin back again.

He paused briefly in his mowing to readjust his hair, which had been slipping out of the knot he had tied it in. Growing out his hair was a decision made based on the fact that he liked metal music, but it had the benefit of really pissing off his parents. He didn't know _why _metal music, long hair, and Satan were all connected. He guessed the church needed a scapegoat for the inevitable corruption of humanity. He, a human, did not feel corrupted by the length of his hair, however; he felt that he looked better with it, liked the way it moved against his back when he walked and how he could windmill at the metal concerts that he sometimes went to. He began to mow again and started to think about the upcoming Fuckface Academy concert. Nathan's mother would probably call his own later in the week, to ensure that they wouldn't forget or change their mind. He had been to concerts several times before with Nathan and the rest, most often death metal bands of varying status, and he knew Nathan's mother would lie about the show that they were seeing. Nathan, though picky about the music he listened to on his own times, didn't care who they saw live as long as they were seeing somebody live. Nathan went to a show practically every weekend, always taking Pickles with him. Murderface and Toki attended more erratically, Toki sometimes not allowed to go and Murderface snobbish about music. Nathan and Pickles would either attend by themselves or with Charles and Abigail, and Toki didn't feel any sort of jealousy about the fact that his friends had other friends, though he knew Murderface did. He and Murderface would hang out together when Nathan and Pickles were off at concerts they couldn't or didn't want to go to, getting drunk at the skate park or sitting in the sun at the beach, Murderface complaining about the fact that girls didn't like him while Toki remained silent. Seeing Fuckface Academy would probably be fun, though Knubbler would most likely be there. Toki didn't care about that if it meant he'd be getting in for free, but Nathan and Pickles might act pissy and Murderface might slip into a more stuck-up mode than usual. Overall, Toki was looking forward to the band, and he allowed himself to imagine standing in the crowd, engulfed by music and moshing. The fantasy diminished the itchy feeling, replacing it with excited anticipation.

He was sticky with sweat and had a headache from the sun when he finished mowing the front yard. He took the lawnmower back in the garage and took another drink of his water, which was, miraculously, still cold. He would have to do the backyard, but first he needed to finish the front yard, doing the things that weren't mowing. There were no trees in the front yard or elsewhere on his property, but the neighbors to his right had a particularly large oak that loved to drop leaves into his yard. He raked those and hummed to himself. When that was finished, he trimmed the hedges around the property that his parents liked so much. He walked out in front of his house to look at the yard, checking to make sure it was immaculate. There were no weeds, no mushrooms sprouting up, the hedges were even, no leaves, and he was satisfied that his parents would be satisfied.

He bought the mower around back to work on the backyard. His backyard was small and fenced in, a grill shoved towards one corner with a smooth wooden deck taking up the majority of the space. He had a nice house he had to admit as he mowed. The backyard was sparsely but tastefully decorated, wicker furniture on the deck and the highlight being a small garden with a fountain. He'd have to tend to the garden, gathering the vegetables and watering the plants, but that he wouldn't mind. The mosquitoes were thick but they weren't a fan of Toki and he only got one bite on the inside of his forearm. They held several parties in their house, mostly church-related gatherings that required Toki to be dressed in his Sunday best and be seen and not heard. There weren't a lot of other teenage members of the church, mostly young couples with small, impressionable children and older people, and the ones that did belong didn't like Toki. The teenagers were an odd bunch, a group of boys who hung around each other and appeared to have been lifted straight from an old sitcom, complete with awkward hairstyles and the habit of referring to each other exclusively by their last names. Like the majority of the population, they didn't speak to Toki. Church socials were lonely.

When he finished mowing he deposited the lawnmower in the garage, took a big gulp of water which was beginning to warm and collected his gardening tools. He checked the clock in the garage—close to four. He would have to work hard and fast to finish before dinnertime. He tended the garden as quickly as possible, straightened up the backyard in a hurry, and scrambled onto the roof to clean the gutters. It hadn't rained in a while, which was both good and bad; the gutters were full of dead leaves and not much else. It was five-thirty by the time he finished his tasks, leaving him just enough time to tidy up and sweep the garage into a presentable state. His headache had grown stronger from a combination of the sun and dehydration and he'd finished his bottle of water, feeling dizzy. He had lost the calming effect of the marijuana during his chores and he felt high-strung, nervous. He kept checking the front yard for mistakes and finding none, then going around to the backyard and again finding none. He fretted in the garage until he saw his mother poke out her head, nod in approval at what she saw, and beckon him to get cleaned up for dinner. He grabbed his empty bottle of water, crumpling it in his fist, and closed down the garage.

He threw the water bottle into the recycling bin and entered his house, taking his shoes off by the door. He wanted badly to take a shower but there wasn't time for that, so he instead washed his face and changed back into his church clothes. He didn't put on his shoes, leaving his feet in socks, but did tie his hair back in a low ponytail. He still felt disgusting and hot from his chores, but he'd deal with that later.

He walked down to the dining room and took his place. Dinner was in front of him, though his parents hadn't sat down yet. There was a glass of water that he drank from thirstily, willing his headache to vanish. His mother appeared, taking her seat, and then his father, taking his.

The food was elaborate and delectable, but Toki always felt uncomfortable when he ate with his parents. They didn't look at him but at their food, taking slow and careful bites. Toki, a fast eater, felt like he had to match them. He learned when he was young that getting stuck at the dinner table with nothing to eat or do was not a pleasant experience, so he ate at a snail's pace, relishing every bite. When he first moved to America the food had made him homesick, but he realized quickly that America was better than Norway in that he didn't live in an abandoned village with no friends other than dolls he'd made himself, and the homesickness had vanished instantly. He still wouldn't call any habitation he shared with his parents _home, _but it was better than it had been, and Toki was grateful for that.

He did finish his dinner before his parents and spent the rest of his time sipping his water. His headache had not gone away but it had not intensified. He wasn't allowed painkillers at home unless he was very ill, and his parents wouldn't consider a headache ill, so he'd have to wait it out. His father finished his food before his mother, as usual, and he rose, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin. Toki knew that after dinner on Sundays his father would investigate his work, and that Toki would have to follow him. If Toki had failed, his punishment would be immediate; if he did not he would be released to his room, where he would do his homework, take a shower, and then go to bed. They left his mother still eating in the dining room and exited through the front door, Toki hastily pulling on his shoes before they went out.

His father walked to the street to take a view of the front yard. Toki stood nervously by his side, biting his lip with his hands thrust in his pockets, scratching at the insides. His father turned to him and nodded, but Toki wouldn't let himself breathe, not yet. They walked around to the backyard, where his father hovered at the garden, inspecting it. Toki had taken all the vegetables in a basket to the kitchen earlier, the only time he was allowed to enter the house when doing Sunday chores, and his father must've seen them already, as he nodded with approval at the garden and at Toki. He craned his neck to look at the gutters and seemed satisfied with those, too. Toki followed him back around into the garage, which also received the seal of approval. Only then did Toki allow himself to breathe out with a thankful exhale, taking his hands from his pocket and wringing his clammy fingers. His father gave him a cold look, but that was not unusual, and Toki hurried back inside the house.

He did his homework before taking a shower, beginning with math. Toki was not the best math student, being better at things requiring creativity, but he wasn't exactly bad. There were fifteen problems involving a lot of calculator work and he finished them in half an hour. History bored him, but he bullshitted his answers and moved on to read the chapter of the book for English, which was also boring. He had an English test coming up, so he read the chapter twice for lack of better things to do, lying on his back in his bed with the book held above his face. It was closer to eight by the time he finished his homework and his headache had lessened, though it had not disappeared completely. He got his backpack ready for the morning and left it by the door of his room when he went to take a shower.

He spent a while in the shower, letting the hot water wash over him and relax his muscles, which ached faintly from the work. He slumped against the wall and let the bathroom steam up, enjoying the feeling of a long shower after a long day. He was sober by now, and saddened by the overall state of his life, but he always became like this when it got later into the night, especially when he was left alone to his thoughts in the shower. He didn't pay it much attention.

When he got out of the shower he wrapped a towel around his midsection and brushed his teeth before walking back to his room. His parents were in bed; he could tell by the utter silence of his house, thicker than usual. He thought about sneaking downstairs to watch television, on mute with the closed captioning on, but decided against it. He was tired, and he had school in the morning, which he would have to get up early for. He went into his room and changed into pajama pants to sleep in, throwing the towel into the laundry hamper. He combed his hair out and tied it back, not wanting to have to bother with it too much in the morning. He had naturally nice hair, straight and relatively without frizz. The girls at school always asked him how he did it, and he would shrug, unconcerned. He used whatever shampoo his mother bought that week and combed it out before he went to bed and when he got up in the morning, and that would always be his answer.

He crawled underneath the comforter and pulled it up to his chest. His bed was in the middle of the room and he slept towards the right side, facing his closet. He developed that habit when he was a kid and scared of monsters, wanting to be able to see inside and ready to fight them in case they appeared. As a teenager, he wasn't scared of monsters—or at least not the ones he knew didn't exist—but this was the most comfortable sleeping position to him now, he guessed from habit.

He closed his eyes and looked for sleep. He found it without too much trouble. He liked sleep, liked dreaming, and tonight he dreamed of unintelligible adventures as usual, the locations of his life distorted as he did things without motive or meaning. He would remember his dreams in the morning but they were never particularly memorable. He didn't dream of fighting, of sex, or of humor, but of going about his average life in skewed, odd ways. Occasionally he would have nightmares, most of them about punishments that'd been inflicted on him over the course of his life, or of being young and helpless in face of greater dangers than himself. These nightmares would always wake him up, the scars on his back throbbing with awareness and memory, but he had no such nightmares tonight.

Sunday came to a close as he slept and dreamt away. It was a boring close, and he wasn't a fan of boring, but he'd take that over punishment from his parents any day of the week, the only guaranteed excitement in his dull life. He still possessed that restless feeling, the one that grabbed ahold of him and wrapped him in it, but he'd grown accustomed to ignoring it. He would tell himself that he could not predict the future and could not change things himself, would just let them play out, happen as they may. He was not a headstrong, determined person, not a believer in shaping your own destiny, nothing as drastic as that. In want of any religious beliefs or strong moral convictions he lived his life in a lazy way, and though sometimes this bugged him, he was overall, content. He had things to look forward to and things to dread: the concert, his parents. He had a life and he lived it, though there was that constant nagging at the back of his head, the base of his skull, begging him for something more.

It had been a good day.


	2. Rift

I feel really bad about this but I can't keep an update schedule, I'm sorry. I will _try _to update at least once a month, but I can't guarantee anything. School starts up next week and that'll eat a lot of my time, so. Anyway. Translating Metalocalypse to a high school setting is fun! But after this chapter it'll stop looking like I'm stealing plot lines from the show.

* * *

Monday opened with Toki sitting in his first period Chemistry class. His assigned seat was at a table towards the back of the classroom, in the middle row and to the left of his lab partner, a boy named Leonard Rockstein. Toki and his lab partner sat behind the duo of Nathan and Pickles, who were currently not speaking to each other, chairs scooted as far apart as possible and bodies turned in opposite directions. Leonard Rockstein—who preferred to go by the ridiculous moniker of "Dr. Rockzo"—was babbling on to Toki about something, but Toki was not paying attention to him, instead looking at Nathan and Pickles. Nathan was holding a conversation with a girl to his left, her shrill laughter ringing in Toki's ears whenever Nathan made a (lame) joke; Pickles was staring ahead at the back of the boy he sat behind, arms crossed and letting out long exhalations accompanied by exaggerated heaving motions of his chest every ten seconds or so. Toki had no idea what was going on between the two of them, as when he came into class this morning and took his seat, Nathan and Pickles were behaving in exactly this fussy manner and had refuted his attempts to make conversation with the both, or either, of them. Their state of upset worried Toki, but he apparently wasn't going to get anywhere with either of them while they were in each other's company, so he would have to wait until next period to interrogate Murderface and see if he knew anything. If Murderface didn't, and Toki doubted he would, then he would approach Pickles about the rift in fourth period Algebra II. Toki did not look forward to either confrontation, nor did he expect them to go well, but he was curious, eager to find out what had happened and why his friends were feuding, so he would simply have to deal.

Dr. Rockzo snapped his fingers in front of Toki's face, causing Toki to jump in his seat, startled. "What?" He asked, turning to face the other boy. Dr. Rockzo was a sight: he had bushy hair that he wore long and dyed various colors throughout the school year (currently a bleached blond; Toki assumed it was in preparation for the next neon hue) and was clad in skinny jeans tight enough and in obnoxious enough colors that they should be left solely to preteen girls. His bulbous nose was rubbed raw and red from his overuse of cocaine; he sniffed and swatted at it periodically. He had crazy eyes and tanned skin, looked thirty years old at the tender age of fifteen. Toki suspected it was from the drug use.

"Dr. Rockzo was just saying that he thinks that Dr. Rockzo and Toki should hang out together this k-k-weekend," Dr. Rockzo said. He had an irritating voice, kind of what nails would sound like if they could talk. Toki also suspected that Dr. Rockzo was suffering from some sort Tourette's syndrome, most likely because of the drug use. Toki suspected a lot of things about Dr. Rockzo with basis in his drug use, actually, enough to make him narrow his eyes at the other boy and twist his mouth in suspicion.

"I can't," Toki said. He stared down at the floor by Dr. Rockzo's feet, wondering where he got his platform boots from; they looked authentic. Toki was genuinely sad that he couldn't hang out with Dr. Rockzo, he liked him well enough to consider him a friend, but his parents would definitely not approve of Leonard Rockstein. Toki would be severely punished for weeks if they knew he spoke to Dr. Rockzo on a regular basis, much less wanted to spend time with him outside of school. Dr. Rockzo could be the poster boy the type of heathens his parents' church despised: loud and lovely in his appreciation of hard music and hard drugs, Satan's influence visible in every nook and cranny of his being. Toki supposed the same could be said for him, but as far as he knew, Dr. Rockzo never had any reason to hide.

"And why k-k-not?" Dr. Rockzo put a hand on his hip and somehow managed to strike a sassy, dubious pose, despite the fact that he was sitting down.

Toki grappled for an excuse. He felt that he had exhausted the fact that his parents didn't let him do _anything, _always feeling guilty when he used it, as if Dr. Rockzo wouldn't believe him. He then remembered that he had the concert this weekend, was going to see Fuckface Academy, and brightened with the thought. "I promised Murderface that I'd go to a concert with him."

"Oh, okay," Dr. Rockzo said, turning around. He wasn't upset, at least not as far as Toki could tell. Dr. Rockzo had a generally pleasant demeanor, one of the reasons why Toki liked him in comparison to his angst-laden friends. Case in point: Dr. Rockzo chatting away merrily while Nathan and Pickles actively ignored each other in front of him.

Toki reached down to his backpack and fished a pen to fiddle with out of the front pocket. Dr. Rockzo had other friends in this class, a group of kids who also dressed like they belonged to the 80's hair metal scene and drew their fashion inspiration from circus clowns. He found them with ease, rising from his chair and strutting over to a girl who wore her hair in huge periwinkle puffballs. Toki was left to entertain himself as Nathan was engaged with that girl and Pickles was too pissed to speak. He played with the pen, clicking the top, twirling it around his fingers, and spinning it on the table until the bell rang. Dr. Rockzo returned to the seat beside him and Nathan turned from the conversation he had to face the front of the classroom where their teacher was sitting behind his desk, typing something on the computer.

"Oh," their teacher said, looking up at his students. "I'll be with you in a minute." Their teacher was an elderly man, small and balding, the type with tenure that didn't actually want to teach anymore. At the beginning of the year some jock, one of Nathan's football buddies, had started a betting pool on when Mr. Marshall would die. Toki couldn't place a bet since he had no money, but he wouldn't have anyway. He felt the idea to be mean. Nathan betted sometime in the next five years; Pickles took a gamble and gave an exact date and cause of death, March 27th and heart attack; Murderface had declared betting gay.

After a minute or two Mr. Marshall rose from his seat. He cleared his throat and walked around the front of his desk to just in front of the first lab table in the center aisle, Toki's aisle. "As you see on the board," he began, sweeping his arm behind him to gesture to a whiteboard crammed with tiny handwriting in purple dry-erase marker, "we'll be going over the properties of these chemicals." He sounded bored and Toki forgave him; Toki was bored too.

Mr. Marshall lectured for half of the class, dull voice soldiering on through the dull material. He was accompanied by a PowerPoint of pictures and diagrams. Toki placed his head in his hand and let his mind wander. He could see that in front of him Pickles was scrolling through something on his phone, hand hidden beneath the edge of the table, and Nathan had his head down, sleeping. Beside him, Dr. Rockzo was texting one of his friends in the class; the two of them kept sneaking grins at each other. Mr. Marshall was either oblivious or didn't care what his students did, both attributes that Toki liked his teachers to possess. When Mr. Marshall reached the end of his lecture he let out a little sigh, happy to be finished with it himself, and passed out a worksheet. Pickles would normally prod Nathan awake at this time, stick a pen in his side with a smile, but Toki felt that he had to do it today. He ripped a blank piece of paper from his notebook, crumpled it into a tight sphere, and threw it at Nathan's head. Nathan stirred and moved his head around like an awakened giant, confused for a second. The person seated in front of him placed the worksheets, recently passed back, on his table. Nathan set his off to the side and turned around to give Toki his and Dr. Rockzo's, expression blank. Pickles was left to snatch his worksheet from in front of Nathan while he wasn't looking.

"You're welcome," Toki said.

Nathan muttered something unintelligible in response. Toki resisted the urge to let out a sigh.

They weren't supposed to work together on Mr. Marshall's assignments but Dr. Rockzo pestered him for the answers anyway. Toki gave them, not sure if they were correct and not particularly caring. He worked fast, bullshitting most of the answers, because if he didn't finish by the end of class he'd have to do it for homework and he didn't want that. He wouldn't have anything to do at home _besides _homework (and chores), but he still didn't want a heap to plow through. It was the principal of the thing.

In front of him, Pickles was scribbling furiously on his paper, glaring at the lines asking for responses like they had personally insulted him. Nathan had put his head down again, drooling on the corner of his worksheet. Toki watched as Pickles shot a glance to Nathan and his worksheet, face screwed up in inner debate, eyebrows curved in a pathetically sad manner. Pickles would sometimes take Nathan's assignments while he was sleeping and do them for him and Toki could see that Pickles wanted to do that now, but he guessed Pickles restrained himself, as he huffed and went back to his own work.

Chemistry passed by uneventfully. Toki finished his worksheet five minutes before the bell rang; the only good thing in his so far terrible day. He collected his things and placed his backpack on the lab table, waiting. He had just lifted a piece of his hair in front of his face to examine it, possibly for split ends, when Dr. Rockzo poked him in his upper arm with the eraser end of his pencil.

"Rockzo's real k-k-sorry that we can't hang out this weekend," Rockzo said. He was sincere, eyebrows raised. Rockzo wore heavy make-up, heavier than some of the girls, and Toki found his eyes drawn to his incredibly thick eyeliner. Rockzo was clownish and Toki found it charming, though everybody else he talked to hated Rockzo with a passion, calling him every name in the book and throwing insults at his back. Toki had admiration for Rockzo: the boy took it all in stride and continued to strut in his ridiculous clothes with his equally ridiculous posse. They were proud, and though they were brash and oftentimes obnoxious, Toki had respect for them, envied the way they lived their lives without barriers.

"Me too," Toki said, because he _was_ sorry that they couldn't hang out.

The bell rang shortly thereafter. Toki slung his backpack over his shoulders and adjusted it as he walked. He was the first out of class and he made his way through the halls unbothered to his next one, English, where he deposited his backpack on the floor by his desk and slid himself in. He was one of the first students to arrive to the class, only a girl that Toki didn't really know occupying another desk. His English class was small and cluttered, which Toki did not appreciate. Small spaces made him antsy.

He read the quote on the board, "Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find his own.—Logan Pearsall Smith" over and over again, finding it oddly cryptic, to pass the time until Murderface arrived from his first period Physical Education class. Toki had knocked his physical education credit requirement out freshman year, not wanting to have to deal with it in the future, but Murderface had done logic backflips that convinced him that he should take it sophomore year. None of Murderface's other friends were taking the class, and he had gym _first period_, making him sweat and stink for the rest of the day. The logic backflips had involved something about getting laid (sophomore girls were the easiest to impress with athletics, apparently, though "athletic" was the last word one would apply to Murderface, except for perhaps "handsome" or "pleasant") and he contradicted himself early on by repulsing everybody around him with his after-gym stench. It wasn't a smart decision, but Murderface wasn't a smart guy.

Murderface bustled in, looking a not-so-hot mess with his hair disheveled and clothes wrinkled from dressing out. He was panting and red-faced, bringing the smell of unfiltered body odor to the desk beside Toki. Toki was used to it by now, the smell just a stronger concentration of Murderface's natural fragrance, and turned to look at him.

"Hey, Murderface," he said. He played with one of the gaping holes in the knees of his jeans, rubbing the flap of denim and feeling the crevice of his kneecap.

"Hello, Toki," Murderface breathed out. The girl that sat in front of him turned around to give him a disgusted look, offended by his very existence; Murderface returned a lecherous smile. "Yeah, schweetheart?"

"Do you know what's up with Nathan and Pickle?" He asked Murderface, halfway to prevent conflict with the girl, who had stuck up her nose and was muttering under her breath to her friend in the seat beside her.

Though Murderface's head was bobbing with his effort to breathe, his expression changed itself instantly. His eyebrows shot up, eyes widening, and he grinned, exposing the gap between his two front teeth. "No, what isch?"

"I don't know, that's why I was asking you," Toki sighed. "They were not speaking to each other last period, in Chemistry."

Murderface shrugged. "I haven't scheen them schince Dick picked me up at Nathan'sch housche Schunday, and they scheemed fine then. Don't worry about it, Toki, it'sch probably juscht a lover'sch schpat, as they schay."

Toki did worry about it, however, and the worry grew as he trudged through English class. Nathan and Pickles not speaking to each other would cause a problem with his plans for this weekend, and that was a selfish reason to worry about something, but it was the one most prominent in his mind. Nathan never went to a show without Pickles and vice-versa, the two musically inseparable, and if Nathan couldn't go then Toki would lose his parents acting as Toki's advocates to his own parents. Murderface would get mad at him, irrationally, though he'd probably still go to the concert with Dick, and Toki would be left alone to stew in his self-pity as he worked all day Saturday at whatever inane things his father wanted him to do. Worse was the idea of being able to go to the show and Nathan taking Pickles along in a silent, premade agreement. Pickles would show up at Nathan's house, ringing the doorbell before crossing his arms over his chest and casting his head to the side, grumbling a greeting when Nathan's mother answered the door. Pickles would be distant, mumbling a response when necessary, and Nathan would be completely silent. Pickles would still ride shotgun and clog the truck with an awkward atmosphere. They wouldn't speak to each other, or anybody at the show, or on the way home, would either get too drunk or not drunk at all, and the whole thing would turn into a huge mess. That was all Toki could think about through English—not the symbolism in the book they were reading as he was supposed to, but on the idea that Pickles and Nathan could disrupt his plans. Murderface's misogynistic jokes—their teacher was a woman around her mid-thirties—couldn't even get Toki to stop obsessing about the idea that he would not be allowed to attend the Fuckface Academy show. It felt universally important to him for reasons he wasn't quite sure of, drastically and cosmically necessary, like he would combust if he didn't see them.

Worry was practically walking beside him on his way to his third period 3D Art class, a heavy burden sprouting from his chest like a conjoined twin. Today they were painting sculptures they had made last week, having sufficiently cooled down over the weekend, and Toki tried very hard to focus on his. He had sculpted a miniature battle axe and was extremely proud of it. 3D Art was his best class and he loved it, his teacher complimenting him constantly and other students staring in envy at his incredible ability to work with his hands, and he really didn't want to fuck this battle axe up. He painted in small, careful strokes because he was nervous and his mind was elsewhere. He accomplished barely anything in the class period. He would have to paint more quickly next time, which would leave more room for error, and he was not having a good day, not at all. The worry that had begun in his chest had climbed its way out, was now as real and three-dimensional as the battle axe that he was turning over in his hands, was sitting beside him and pestering him. The teacher called for the students to return their work to the spot in the back of the class and he did so, cradling his sculpture in his hands because it honestly felt like his baby. He bit his bottom lip until the bell rang, bouncing his leg up and down in anticipation, and threw his backpack over his shoulder as soon as he heard the first tinny note.

The art studio was in a different building then his math class and he dashed through the courtyard in a hurry, the unbuttoned shirt he was wearing over a t-shirt billowing behind him as his backpack fell off his shoulders. He always arrived with enough time to spare and wasn't worried about being late, but he needed to talk to Pickles as soon as possible. He collided with a kid that he recognized from his church, a short, mousy fellow with a curved nose and shouted an apology over his shoulder. The kid sneered at him, raising a claw-like hand in his direction, but Toki didn't have time to focus on this kid's particular brand of weirdness, not today. He met a traffic backlog on the stairs, apathetic teenagers that were clearly too cool for school moving at the slowest pace possible, and he was beginning to feel murderous with annoyance. By the time he reached his math class he was ready to tear somebody's head off by the top of their mouth and throw it like a javelin, watch brain matter and blood splatter against and roll down a wall. He festered in this feeling, the fantasy delighting him in a perverse way he tried to push down.

Pickles was already in the room, body splayed across his chair, languid. His elbow was resting on what was Toki's desk, legs outstretched in the aisle, and he was speaking halfheartedly to somebody across from him. Pickles didn't pay any attention to Toki as Toki stepped over Pickles's legs, and he only paused in his conversation to turn around and look at Toki when Toki sat down and budged Pickles's elbow to get it off his desk. Sometime between first and fourth period Pickles must've lit up—probably skipped one of his classes to go get high, either by himself or with that group of guys he kept talking about forming a band with that were as equally into drugs as he was—because his eyes were red and lidded. He was calm in comparison to first period, smiling a little as Toki slid his elbow off the desk.

"What's up?" he asked. Toki had not yet decided if the fact that Pickles drugged himself up was going to be beneficial or unhelpful. He would be more agreeable, placated, but this could serve as a deterrent to the topic of conversation Toki wanted to discuss. Pickles was known to make exquisite promises while intoxicated, would guarantee you the world and stars as far as the eye could see, that he would not follow up on once sober. Toki trusted Pickles, but not _fully _in this state. Toki would approach the situation with caution.

"I should be asking you that!" Toki's voice slid into a higher pitch. He found it hard to be mad at a drugged-up Pickles, who was too cool of a guy to ever really get mad at, but the memory of a pissed Pickles lingered in his mind. He could get mad at a pissed Pickles, and so he focused on the image of Pickles hunched over and scribbling at a million miles a minute with fury furled up in his body, feline in his anger.

"Yeah?" Pickles asked. He put his elbow back on Toki's desk and rested his head in his hand, looked up at Toki through his eyelashes. He was still smiling lightly, looking complacent and out of it.

"Yeah!" Toki curled his fingers into his palms. He was growing angry quickly, but it wasn't at Pickles as much as was at his life, at himself. Nathan and Pickles didn't fight much, or at all, and he was concerned for his friends and their friendship, but he was mostly concerned for himself. His motives were not unselfish; he was not driven by the pureness of his heart. He was driven by the desire to be able to attend the fucking Fuckface Academy concert this weekend.

"Then ask, dood." Pickles smirked some variant of a smirk, but he was too stoned to move his face that much, and batted his eyelashes at Toki. Toki had no idea what Pickles was trying to accomplish with his actions, but Pickles probably didn't know, either.

Toki sighed and put his hands on his thighs to push off and arch his back. His muscles were hurting from a combination of yesterday's labor and stress. His back crackled and popped, pleasing Toki. "Why are you and Nathan mad with each other?" He asked, still stretching. The question wasn't quite what he was going for, but he had troubles articulating his thoughts in his basic level of English and Pickles couldn't speak Norwegian.

"Oh," Pickles said. His face fell and he let out a long, loose breath as he looked down at Toki's desk, eyelids drooping. "_That_."

Unfortunately for Toki, the bell rang before Pickles could elaborate and their math teacher—an excited young lady with a great enthusiasm for the subject—sprang from her seat and into action. Toki knew he wouldn't be able to talk to Pickles at all in this class period, not with their teacher babbling on about formulas and variables for forty minutes nonstop. He had feared that this would happen. He did have lunch after this class and would be able to walk to the cafeteria with Pickles and interview him then, but first he spent the forty minutes of Algebra II wanting to either die or kill somebody. His thoughts flickered back to the head-as-a-javelin fantasy. His teacher finished within a minute of the bell ringing and he scrambled to write down their assignment, twenty problems on natural logarithms, which was guaranteed to be a lot of calculator work and therefore a quick assignment. Of course he was given a light load of homework on a day where he was too agitated to properly enjoy it. When the bell rang he pushed his things haphazardly into his backpack and poked Pickles in the back, as Pickles had fallen asleep sometime during the lesson and was snoring softly.

"Come on, Pickle," Toki said, poking Pickles repeatedly as Pickles raised his head, "we have to go to lunch." Toki was already standing, one hand denting Pickles's back and the other holding the strap of his backpack. He needed to adjust them so that they wouldn't slip when he walked, but he couldn't do that when he was standing with his backpack on, and would probably forget by the next time he sat down. He thought of asking Pickles to remind him, but Pickles would also forget, especially in the haze of his highness.

"'Kay," Pickles said. He moved out of his chair lazily, stretching and yawning. Pickles didn't bring anything to this class, his nap a seemingly premade decision. He walked in front of Toki and Toki trailed behind him, willing Pickles to move faster, but Pickles did not. Toki stared at Pickles's dreadlocks in fascination. They were quite well-kept as far as dreadlocks went, extending neatly down his back and bouncing as he walked.

Toki was able to get beside Pickles when they left the classroom and started walking in the direction of the lunchroom. Toki, Pickles, Nathan and Murderface all had the same lunch period, something Toki normally considered a blessing, but today he thought of it as a curse. Pickles wasn't moving to initiate conversation, head lolling around to stare at things that caught his interest without any social consciousness.

"So," Toki said when they were about halfway to the cafeteria, "you and Nathan?" He was wringing his hands, a nervous habit. His backpack slipped down his shoulders again.

"Oh, _that,_" Pickles said again, rotating his head to face Toki. He was walking at a leisurely pace; Toki had to physically slow himself down to match Pickles. It was odd to Toki to look down at Pickles while speaking to him. Toki had been the shortest one in the group until recently, when he went through a growth spurt and sprang up four inches taller almost overnight. He was even with Murderface but shorter than Nathan, who was a giant in comparison.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" Toki asked. He stuck his tongue between his teeth, another nervous habit. He was apprehensive, felt like Pickles had grabbed handfuls of his nerve endings and was shaking them.

Pickles thought for a moment. "Yeah, sure, alright." He shoved his hands into his pockets and scratched at his thighs. Toki could tell he was itching to smoke something. Pickles had been suspended for a week when he was caught smoking outside of the gates of school a half-hour before school started during the first half of freshman year, a mistake he swore he'd never make again.

Toki exhaled, relief wracking his body like he'd just breathed out the breath he'd been holding since he was born. He stopped wringing his hands and he bought them to his armpits, where they tightened on his backpack straps. He looked at Pickles with anticipation.

"He told me that he's gonna ask _Abigail _out," Pickles said. He scowled and sucked his bottom lip in between his teeth. His Wisconsin accent picked up a mechanical whininess when he was stoned, exaggerating the sentence in an almost humorous manner. Toki had to resist the urge to laugh.

"Is that all?" They were almost to the cafeteria now; they didn't have time for a long story. Toki wasn't worried if that was the extent of the feud; fighting over a girl was something that could be easily settled by the girl herself and Toki doubted that Abigail would want to date Nathan. She wasn't the type of girl that was usually into guys like Nathan, as far as Toki knew. The news was draining, liberating, and Toki felt all the nasty little feelings that had been residing in his chest beginning to slide down and out.

"No," Pickles muttered, bottom lip still in his mouth. He let it loose and continued speaking. "He told me he hooked up with her at this party we went to, on Saturday."

"Oh," Toki said. His initial reaction was that of jealousy—Murderface, Nathan, and Pickles had all gone to a party on Saturday. Toki was not able to go because his parents had ordered a new bedframe and he spent all day assembling it just for them to decide they didn't even want it and to return it. When that subsided, his old pals nervousness and worry crept back into their crevices in his chest. Adding sex into rifts was never a good idea, and here he was, faced with the idea that Pickles's and Nathan's legendary best friendship was being put to the test by a silly, inconsequential female and the attraction they spurred in men.

"Yeah," Pickles said, scowling hard. He was practically shaking. "Like the fucker didn't know I'm in love with her." He drummed his fingers against his thighs and spat on the ground. "Shit," he muttered, "I'm gonna have to take a smoke break after lunch."

"Well, Pickle," Toki began, feeling awkward and thankful that the door to the cafeteria was in sight, just a mere twenty feet ahead, "do you think Abigail would go out with him?"

Pickles groaned. "I dunno, Toki," he said. "Women, they're mysterious. And my God, what a woman she is."

Toki did not have any advice to offer. Relationships were foreign to him, just another thing that other people had and he didn't. He wasn't allowed to date until he was of marrying age and he had never even made any form of romantic contact with a girl. Not that any girl was interested in him. As far as he could tell, everybody thought he was weird. He hoped with all of his might that Nathan and Pickles would be able to reach an agreement by themselves and that he could watch this fight from the sidelines until it was over, which he wished would be soon. At least by this weekend.

They reached the cafeteria and Toki held the door open for Pickles. They split ways then; Toki went to their usual table, where Nathan and Murderface were already sitting, while Pickles went to buy some food. Toki was not allowed to buy food at school, which for some reason existed independently outside of the fact he wasn't allowed to have money on him.

He took a seat opposite Nathan, who had his hands wrapped around a hamburger, and to the right of Murderface, who had a fat sandwich squeezed between his grubby paws.

"Hey guys," Toki said. He shed his backpack and placed it by his feet. He pulled a bottle of water and a granola bar from the side pocket, uncapped the water bottle and unwrapped the granola bar. He had run out of the fun flavors, like chocolate chip and s'mores too soon, and was faced with raisin. He suspected his parents were fucking around with his food again, which they used to do a lot more when he was younger, before they needed his strength to provide for them. But when he was little, they used to like to do this thing where they fed him in tiny portions for a week or two, and then forced him to eat a feast (usually after church), inevitably making him sick. It was one of their longer punishments, pulled out if he'd done something _really _bad, like if he hadn't gotten enough wood or fish for the winter.

"Hey, Toki," Murderface said through a mouthful of sandwich. Food crumbs dotted his face and dribbled down his shirt, an unappealing sight. Toki averted his eyes to Nathan.

Nathan grunted an unenthusiastic hello. He looked pissed still, heavy brow furrowed and body hunched. Toki figured it would be best to leave him alone and took a bite of his granola bar. He _hated_ raisin.

Pickles did not sit with them at lunch, which Toki found both shockingly unusual and unsurprising. Pickles instead sat with his druggie friends across the cafeteria. Nathan looked over at them a few times during lunch but did nothing else except eat and sulk the whole time. Pickles was laughing and taking in a large amount of food, but he looked off to Toki, depressed even. Toki talked to Murderface during lunch and made plans to go to the skatepark on Thursday; Toki would tell his parents that he had to stay after school in the library to study for his English test on Friday. It would buy him a few hours of free time.

After lunch Toki had German by himself. He conjugated verbs lethargically, depressed by the lack of developments in Nathan and Pickles's dispute. He really wanted them to work things out and figured that the issue would come to a head after Nathan asked Abigail out. He had all three of the other guys in his next class, World History, and he might be able to talk to Nathan then. He probably wouldn't be able to, though, as Pickles's presence would push Nathan into silence.

He was right. Sixth period was tense and no matter how hard Murderface and Toki tried to lift the pressure, Nathan and Pickles brooded in front of them. The teacher droned on about the French revolution and Robespierre and his usurpation by execution by his own people and Toki stared at the back of Pickles's head and his well-kept dreads. He was concerned for their friendship, sure, but he was mostly concerned for himself. His parents' oppression put an end to anything he might ever want to do; including being able to provide transportation to events that he wanted to attend without relying on Nathan and his old truck, and the idea that a petty problem would put an end to his plans caused rage to boil inside of him. He had let himself be excited about the concert; he should've known better. He was stupid, dreaming insipid dreams, and as much as the thought spilled acid down his throat, his parents were right. He would never do anything with his life, never amount to anything, never, never, never, and he dreamt of their heads under the guillotine. Then he felt bad about that, shame blooming throughout his body, and he lowered his forehead to the desk for the rest of class.

"I'm getting real schick of thisch," Murderface said as Toki walked with him out of the classroom when the period was over. Nathan and Pickles had bolted, running into each other and sending deathly glares before exiting in a hurry. Murderface's last class of the day, Spanish, was near Toki's, Home Ec, so they walked in that direction together.

"Me too," Toki said, nodding. "Do you know why they're mad with each other?"

"No, why?" Murderface shoved a small freshman girl out of his way as he said this through gritted teeth. The girl fell down; Murderface chuckled. The girl struggled to pick herself up, but Murderface had lost interest in her by now, instead looking ahead and down the hall.

"Nathan is going to ask Abigail out," Toki said.

"Abigail, asch in Charlesch'sch friend Abigail? The Abigail Picklesch hasch a masschive boner for?"

Toki nodded in response. His backpack slid down his shoulders again; he told himself inwardly that he was going to tighten the straps as soon as he got to Home Ec, no exceptions.

Murderface snorted. "Sche'sch not going to schay yesch, he schouldn't waschte hisch time."

Toki shrugged and groaned. "I just want to go to the Fuckface Academy concert this weekend," he said. "If Nathan and Pickles are still mad at each other…"

"They'll work it out," Murderface said. "They're too in love with each other to schtay mad."

Toki laughed hard enough to garner stares. He wiped away small tears at the corner of his eyes as he said goodbye to Murderface and entered his Home Ec class, still giggling to himself. It was funny because it was true. He forgot to tighten the straps of his backpack when he sat down.

Monday closed with Toki lying in his bed, on his stomach, at the premature time of 8:30. His heated face was pressed into his pillow, the cold underside that he had flipped over. He felt raw, _was _raw, his scratchy blanket rubbing against his bare skin. He was sleeping in just his boxers tonight; it was too hot for proper pajamas, and he'd been too upset to even think about pulling on a pair of pants or a shirt when he had stumbled into his room.

He had fucked up the first chore he had attempted to do, which was dust the antique cabinet. He'd broken something from Norway, a cheap and hideous glass statuette. He had suspicions that these ugly glass knickknacks that looked out of place with the family heirlooms were placed as a test for him, and it was a test he had failed as the thing, a translucent starfish, tumbled out of his hands and broke against the tiled floor of his kitchen. Glass had gotten _everywhere_, tiny shards rolling under the cabinet and speckling the ground around his feet. He had had to pick them all up by hand while his father watched, still and silent as the glass statuettes lined up in the cabinet. He had pointed to a spot on the kitchen table where Toki was to put the glass pieces when he collected them, and Toki had to swallow back dreading bile. He had known that he would be robbed of lunch and probably dinner when the starfish fell, but he hadn't the slightest clue about what would happen with the glass. He collected the pieces in his palm and deposited them on the table; it took him four trips to get it all.

His father had sighed, a long, rattling exhalation like the wind rubbing the branches of dead trees together. He gestured for Toki to remove his shirt, which he did, thinking about his father's favorite: the whip. Then his father took him by the shoulders and turned him around; Toki was surprised by how strong his father seemed, the brittle hands with the long fingers feeling sturdy on his shoulders. His father had forced him to bend down with a hand on the base of his neck. Toki had been bent at a slight angle in the kitchen, a few feet away from the sink and the window above it. His father had walked to the window and shut the curtains.

When he returned from the window, his father had selected the largest piece of glass and drew it across his back in the pattern of a cross. He drug it through the scarred mess Toki's back had become, the motions steady and precise, never varying. He had finished by slicing through his skin perpendicular to the vertical line he'd drawn, just under Toki's shoulder blades. When his father had finished he stood, placed the bloody glass on the table, and he had said, "Boy, you need God more than anyone else," in hoarse Norwegian. He had picked Toki's shirt up, had handed it to him and had gestured to the glass on the table, indicating Toki should clean it up the proper way now. Toki had had to scrub the table down, since there was blood on it now.

It had been a shallow cut but it had bled, staining the back of his shirt, and he finished his chores as his back bled against his clothes. He wasn't in the mood to do anything but eat his dinner (which he was allowed to, though he'd been denied lunch) and take a shower after he finished cleaning the house and so he neglected his homework and went to lie in bed. He'd done a bad thing by getting the bandages out of his parents' bathroom to wrap his back in while they were watching television downstairs, and if they discovered missing bandages he was surely going to be punished more, which he wasn't looking forward to. In his bed he sighed against the pillow. His back wasn't stinging or bleeding, but all he could think of was what he'd seen in the bathroom mirror as he bandaged his skin: a pink cross on his back that his father had drawn in a way across his scars, too shallow to join them, but memorable enough to preside in his mind forever. Such was the nature of his life.

In Tuesday and Wednesday, Toki found more of the same. His parents hadn't noticed their missing bandages and Toki took extra care through the rest of his chores, dodging further punishment. He couldn't afford to screw up his chances to see Fuckface Academy, though those weren't looking too good. Nathan and Pickles weren't speaking to each other and Nathan had not yet asked Abigail out; there was no resolution to their rift. Pickles was grumpy even when he smoked, which was a new thing that Toki didn't like, and he sat in school quietly fuming. The problem was beginning to look a lot more serious than Toki had previously thought, like there was more than just Abigail bugging Pickles, but Toki wasn't about to pry into that. He bided his time with Murderface, who was trying to act like Pickles and Nathan weren't bothering him but Toki could tell they were. Murderface got weird about people fighting sometimes.

There was hope on Thursday.

Pickles was late to first period. Rockzo and the girl Nathan spoke to were absent that day. Thus, Nathan and Toki were left alone in their quadrant for a few minutes. Nathan turned around in his chair and sat with his arms on top of the edge and legs straddling the back, chin resting on his folded arms, eyes boring into Toki's. Toki was uncomfortable, but he was also curious, so he let Nathan speak.

"I'm going to ask Abigail out today," he announced. He did not seem too happy about it. "I think it's right since I fucked her at the party." He was scowling more than usual and he lowered his eyes to the floor when he finished his sentence instead of looking at Toki directly.

Toki gulped and nodded. There was not enough time left in the week for things to be made right, he had decided. Doom and gloom and dread and unhappiness hung above him, black clouds gathering on the horizon, and all he could do was sit and wait for the storm. "Do you really think that?" The question was a weak attempt and he knew it; he knew Nathan was sure and Pickles was sure and he knew everything sucked.

"Yeah," Nathan said. "I mean, nobody else does, but I do. Charles told me that she was pretty drunk and she says she couldn't consent or whatever, but I still think it's, like, the right thing to do." He spoke the longest sentence Toki had ever heard him speak without using a curse word, even when they met as scrawny, miniature sixth graders, and it was the single scariest thing that had happened all week.

"What about Pickle?" Toki tugged at the collar of his shirt and pushed his tongue around in his mouth.

"What about Pickles? He didn't have a chance with her anyway." Nathan scoffed and casted his head off to the side. Not the side where Pickles would sit, but the other side, towards the part of the classroom lined with lab supplies. He rested his cheek on his arms, hair falling over the edge of the chair.

"It's not nice." Toki knew it was futile, but he couldn't stop talking. Maybe Nathan would realize what was going on before he tried to ask her out; maybe Pickles would suddenly lose interest in her; maybe Abigail would decide to move to China. Each option was as likely as the others.

"Fuck being nice. I'm asking her out after school." And with that, Nathan picked his body up and turned himself around.

Toki breathed out through his nose. His chest hurt. He thought of the pink cross on his back, already fading, definitely not going to scar. He thought about guillotines and javelins and blood and gore and death and splashing his face with the chemicals they worked with in the lab today, chugging down his test tubes like a can of mediocre beer, wiping his mouth and waiting for death to wrap its arms around him. He wasn't feeling suicidal, though, often felt murderous if he was going to apply a death-causing adjective to himself, and when class ended, he had caused no harm nor good to the world.

When Toki told Murderface about what Nathan was going to do, as they were sitting in second period English and Murderface was breathing hard from the exertion of Physical Education, Murderface asked Toki, "Are you going to tell Picklesch?"

"Tell Pickle?" Toki's eyes widened and he bent backwards in his seat. The thought had not occurred to him. Pickles already knew that Nathan was going to ask her out, but he didn't know a time or a place, and Toki didn't feel like providing him with enough information to hire a hit man or embarrass himself by showing up. Toki forced a groan back down his throat just thinking of what could possibly go wrong if he told Pickles, like the situation wasn't already as wrong as it could be. "No. No, I am not going to tell Pickle."

"That'sch a good idea," Murderface said, placing his hands beside his head and reclining. "I don't know what Picklesch would do if he knew."

However, Toki didn't get a chance to not tell Pickles. When he walked into his fourth period, he could tell Pickles knew. Toki could _feel_ the sheer fury rising off of him from where he stood in the doorway. He approached Pickles like one would approach a wild cat, took his seat and put his backpack on the ground in slow motion. He crunched his body up and slid lower in his seat, anticipating Pickles's explosion.

Pronouncing Pickles as pissed would have been an understatement. He turned around in his seat in a way that reminded Toki of the little girl rotating her head in the Exorcist, slow and wide-eyed, absolutely _insane. _Pickles snarled, bared his teeth, and lunged at Toki like he was going to wrap his hands around Toki's neck. He stopped himself before he could do it, chest rising and falling as he struggled to keep himself calm. He sounded like a steam whistle, puffing hard. His face was a red color that was daring to match his hair, his eyes narrowed, nose scrunched. Frightening—Pickles was _frightening_.

"Douchebag," Pickles said. Toki wasn't sure _who _Pickles was talking about and wasn't going to ask him. Pickles breathed for a while, and then elaborated. "Charles told me, yeah, right before I came in here. Can't believe _Nathan, _my _best friend, _my fucking buddy, is doing this to me."

"Well—" Toki wanted to say something like, _he feels bad about it, _or _it's just a girl, Jesus Christ get over yourselves_, but nothing formed and he let his sentence drop off.

"What a betrayal," Pickles continued. He adjusted himself so he was sitting sideways in his desk, feet in front of him. He rubbed his hands on his knees and looked down at the floor. His face was beginning to unfurl itself, muscles relaxing. "What a motherfucking betrayal."

Toki continued to say nothing; he wasn't quite sure that Pickles was talking to him or just talking to himself with the excuse of Toki being there.

"You know, I'm mad as fuck, mad as balls mad, I'm pissed, Toki. But I—I just can't _believe _it. She ain't even his type, you know that?" Pickles lifted his head and exhaled. Toki actually watched for the smoke to slip out between Pickles's lips, but obviously there would be none. Toki thought there should be, though. Pickles appeared to be completely sober. "He likes whores, he likes metal chick whores. Abigail is—she's classy, she's a classy as fuck chick. He shouldn't want her." His shoulders drew up as his hands clasped around his knees for a few seconds before he loosened his hands and let his shoulders drop, defeated.

Toki sighed. This was tedious. He was grateful when the bell rang and his teacher began her daily ramblings on the subject of Algebra II, as it meant that Pickles dropped his head on his desk and didn't come up for air until the end of class. Toki doodled in his notebook under the disguise of taking notes; he drew a wildcat with dreadlocks pouncing on a panther. Toki had taken 2D Art freshman year and he wasn't as good at drawing as he was at sculpting, but he was objectively okay, and soon he'd drawn out a whole scene. He inked tall trees hiding a sun and casting shade, a grotesque white tiger lurking near the edge of the page and half-hidden by branches. He placed a small cat sitting with its tail in front of the mouth of the forest, watching the wildcat and the panther and looking as worried as a cat could be. He spent the rest of the day polishing the doodle-turned-drawing: lunch was tense as always with the absence of Pickles, History was tense as always with the presence of Pickles, German and Home Ec were boring and lonely. By the time the final bell rang he'd taken his emotions out on a piece of notebook paper, his friends-turned-felines immortalized in black ink, and signed his name in illegible cursive at the bottom before packing up his things and heading to the busses.

There was a fifteen minute window between school ending and the busses leaving that Toki normally spent with his friends, sitting to the right of the front steps of the school on the sidewalk. He would occasionally catch a ride home from Nathan, but Nathan's truck took sixteen minutes to get to his house while his bus took thirty-one, so he preferred the bus most days. This week he's been spending the excess time with Murderface just outside the busses, leaning over the railing that separated the school from the parking lot and listening as Murderface griped and complained about whatever was aggravating him that day. Pickles had spent the week with his druggie friends and Nathan had been leaving directly after school. Today Toki was supposed to meet Murderface by their usual spot, by the front steps, and they were going to go to the skatepark via walking; it wasn't too far from the school. Home Ec was located on the second floor of the same building the art studio was in, so he would have to traverse the courtyard to get to the front of the school.

In the courtyard he found commotion. Standing directly in the middle, surrounded by a crowd of amused students, and engaged in an embarrassingly public shouting match was no other than Nathan and Abigail. Abigail wasn't doing the shouting but standing with her arms crossed, blushing and body language indicating that she'd rather be anywhere else. Charles was behind her, hand gripped on Pickles's shoulder, forehead creased. Murderface was behind Nathan and holding his head in his hands—even _Murderface _was mortified. As Toki came closer to the scene he realized that Murderface and the others had every right to be ashamed, as Nathan was making a gargantuan fool out of himself.

"But you—" He shouted. He was leaning into the conversation, back curved and body moving with every syllable of every word. His eyebrows were upturned, mouth hanging open. He looked pathetic, a saddened hulk, like an ancient god of the sea who was about to unleash a rainstorm in their depression.

"Nathan, please, don't, not here," Abigail said through gritted teeth. She pinched the bridge of her nose. She was tapping her foot and looked ridiculously professional in comparison. She dressed for school like one would dress to go to work: chaste skirts and blouses, low heals. She was like Charles in that manner, who always wore button-down shirt and either fashionable khaki shorts or slacks with either immaculate topsiders or shiny loafers. Toki often wondered why Nathan and Pickles hung around them; though he knew they enjoyed death metal, they were also in fierce competition for the top spot in the junior class, Charles occupying it at the moment.

"But—" Nathan was at a loss for words. Toki was standing beside Murderface now and he shot him a questioning look that Murderface couldn't see anyway. Toki had gathered the gist of the situation, it was apparent: Nathan had asked Abigail out and things were not going well.

Charles moved like he wanted to stand beside Abigail and come to her defense, but he was preoccupied with Pickles, who was spazzing out. Toki couldn't identify any one emotion on Pickles, the other boy simply going haywire with information. His limbs were flailing and he was sputtering, forming words halfway before they died on his tongue and new ones came through. Toki was shocked that Pickles wasn't foaming at the mouth. The mob around Nathan and Abigail and their drama was thinning, teenagers coming to the realization that this wasn't as entertaining so much as it was pitiful, and within another minute there was only Toki, his friends, Charles and Abigail left.

Nathan hadn't given up; he was still trying to articulate something. His eyes were stretched enough to be able to see the pink underneath, his hands reaching out to grab at the air, hair in his face. His back was quaking with the effort of speaking and of the brutal emotional toll wracking his body. "You—you let me—"

"Nathan, she was drunk," Charles said finally, both hands on Pickles now; he had moved him around so that he stood in front of him.

"It didn't mean anything," Abigail added, letting her arms drop loose and making little encouraging motions with her arms. "I'm sorry, but I just don't feel the way you, um, do, I guess."

Nathan floundered, flabbergasted, and eventually let loose himself, shoulders drooping. Murderface and Toki rushed to him out of instinct, though they didn't have the slightest clue as to what they were supposed to do in this situation. Pickles had gone still beneath Charles's hands and Charles released them, walking calmly to Abigail and collecting her. They exited quietly while Nathan stared at the ground, stunned. Pickles imitated Nathan, though his eyes were on his friend and not the floor.

"You—you okay, Buddy?" Murderface asked, extending an arm to pat Nathan on the back. He sent a look to Toki asking for help; Toki raised his eyebrows shrugged.

"No," Nathan choked out. He opened his mouth several times to say something else, but couldn't find anything and just shut up. He jerked Murderface's arm off of him and sauntered off in the distance, towards the student parking lot. Pickles followed Nathan with his gaze, body curved in indecision, obviously debating on whether or not to run after Nathan or to go home. Since Pickles strode off in the direction of the busses and not the student parking lot, Toki guessed he decided to go home. As Pickles walked past Murderface and Toki, who were still standing dumfounded in the middle of the courtyard, he muttered "Douchebag," but once again Toki wasn't sure who Pickles was talking about or who Pickles was talking to.

Toki and Murderface gawked at each other for a handful of seconds. Toki had predicted this outcome; Nathan had as much of a chance with Abigail as he did of graduating head of the class, or even graduating at all. He hadn't, however, expected something so _public _and utterly humiliating for every party involved. This would replace the old gossip, which was that somebody had knocked somebody else's mother up (and though that had been proven false a month ago, people were still talking about it) and for the next week-to-whenever-somebody-trumps-it-with-something-else there would be jokes and talk amongst their (and possibly Charles's and Abigail's) class. Toki supposed he didn't expect anything less of the occasionally-buffoonish Nathan.

"Scho…schkatepark?" Murderface asked, eyes begging Toki with every ounce of his being to get the fuck out of this school.

"Skatepark," Toki said, nodding.

They walked to Murderface's locker, where he had stored a skateboard for Toki. Murderface didn't skate but he had a board, a Christmas present from a few years back, which was a cheap piece of shit like everything else Murderface owned, but Toki wasn't about to complain. He skateboarded instead of walking with Murderface beside him, going on about something that had happened in his Spanish class that had really pissed him off. Neither of them were about to discuss what had happened back there; it had been an otherworldly, ethereal experience, and Toki felt that if he were to talk about it the thing would gain sentience and attack his face or something. Murderface tended to avoid emotional situations that made him uncomfortable.

Murderface hung out on the edge of the park, near the fence with the druggies and drunks, while Toki actually skated. He'd been introduced to it in seventh grade by a temporary friend, a big fan of professional boarding, though Toki had no interest in that. Toki didn't care about tricks or doing this for the rest of his life; he just liked the way he felt when he was going too fast down the pipes, watching his shirt billow behind him and hearing the air whistling past his ears and deafening him. The other guys used this as a place to get drugs and hang out with those who did drugs—the skatepark was, for some reason, the center of drug-related activity in this town—so everybody won when Toki wanted to go. The skatepark was one of their usual haunts.

He rode the half-pipe up and down for a lengthy amount of time, not interested in doing anything else for the day. It cleared his head considerably and he was sweating by the time he finished, flicking his board up with his foot and carrying it over to Murderface, who was slumped against a fence with a can of soda he'd bought from a vending machine in his hand. Toki folded himself down beside Murderface and attempted to get his hair back in place; he'd forgotten to bring something to tie it up with and it was plastered over his face and sticking out everywhere. Murderface handed him a bottle of water from his other side and Toki drank, watching the other people in the skatepark do what they did as he sat beside Murderface. He had about half an hour before they had to catch the city bus that would lead him back near his house, where they would part ways.

"We have to talk about it," Toki said when he finished drinking his water, wiping his lip with the back of his hand. "Nathan and Pickle."

"Nathan'sch schuch an idiot," Murderface snorted. He drank from his soda; his foot twitched. Murderface had been sitting in the heat for a while and it seemed that his conversation partners had wandered off. Murderface would sometimes complain about getting bored at times like this, but other times he would enjoy it, the quietness in the sweltering heat. Murderface was like Toki in that he never really wanted to go home, a characteristic they also shared with Pickles. The reluctance to return was a thing that had bought them together; they would waste time with each other just to avoid wasting time at their houses. Nathan couldn't join in on that, but he could offer a location to dawdle in and his form of sympathy.

Toki nodded. "I hope we can still go to the show on Saturday."

Murderface snorted again and ran his fingers through his hair. Like Toki, Murderface's hair was a mess, frizzy and uncooperative. "_I'm _schtill going," he said.. "Whether it'sch with you fagsch or not. I have Dick."

Toki sighed and felt a tug of envy in his stomach, which was weird. He was generally jealous of Nathan and Pickles, but he tended to pity Murderface more than wish he _was _Murderface, though now he'd trade anything in the world to be able to have the freedom that Murderface possessed. He'd once said that his grandparent's didn't give a fuck about what he did as long as he didn't get arrested or more importantly, knock a girl up. Thinking about it just pissed Toki off and so he drank from his water to distract himself and watched a particularly good skater, some kid who couldn't be older than thirteen and who was wearing skinny jeans, take the whole course in a fluid motion.

After a few minutes Toki got up to skate again, to pass the time if nothing else. He did the handrail and ended up skidding, landing on his ass towards the end while his board went off in another direction. He was done with skating after that and motioned to Murderface to leave the park. He walked with Murderface in silence, bizarrely angry at everything in the world, to the bus stop. They sat on the bench and waited for the bus. The asphalt on the road was wavering with heat, it was that intense and thick around them, humidity weighing them down. It was truly inexplicably hot, even for October in Florida.

"I can't believe it's so hot," Toki said. He was rolling the skateboard back and forth with his feet on the ground, watching it for some cheap amusement. "It's never like this in Norway."

"Here we go with the Norway schit again," Murderface said. He closed his eyes and sighed. "Why don't you go back there if you liked it so much?" Murderface was sitting like he always did; legs spread wide and unaccountably, head tipped back on the edge of the bench in a way that looked like it hurt. He was playing with a splinter to his left, trying to rip it out.

Toki didn't bother responding to that and instead said, "Heat makes people crazy, I think that's what's happening." He continued to lazily slide the board back and forth, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and head between his fists. Cars passed by in front of him, the sound of wheels on the road comforting.

Murderface shrugged, eyes still closed and head still tipped back. "Everybody'sch schtupid, thisch schit happensch anyway."

Toki thought for a moment. "I guess that's true."

"They won't schtay mad for long, don't worry," Murderface said, cracking his eyes open. "We'll get to go to the schow, you'll schee."

The bus came a few minutes later and they boarded it; Murderface paid for Toki. They sat towards the front. It was about four in the afternoon and there weren't many people on board, but those that were tended to be weird, the type of people that take the bus in the mid-afternoon. The ride to the stop near Toki's house took about twenty minutes, and Murderface spent it texting somebody while Toki stared out the window. Murderface was acting peculiar, but that was unsurprising, because everybody was acting peculiar. Toki wondered if _he'd_ been acting peculiar; he didn't have the self-awareness to tell. The conundrum was too much for him, and so his thoughts switched to how much he didn't want to do his homework and the fact that he probably wouldn't. When the bus came to a stop Toki put the skateboard on Murderface's lap and stepped over his legs; Murderface grunted, which doubled as an acknowledgement of the skateboard and a goodbye.

"See you tomorrow," Toki said, and then he walked down the steps. The stop was on a busy street, the one that his neighborhood hid behind. He had about ten minutes of walking to look forward to in the heat, which was a shame, as he'd just been feeling cool from the weak air conditioning on the bus. He tried to make the walk last as long as possible, going slow, but the repetition of the architecture and landscaping of his neighborhood was boring him out of his mind and he started to walk faster on instinct. It was closer to five now, just before the time where all his suburban neighbors would arrive home from work. There were some children playing in some yards, but they ignored Toki and Toki ignored them.

"Today sucked," he announced to nobody in particular when he was about halfway to his house. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his shorts and then took them back out again; it was very fucking hot. He knew that when he'd get home he'd have to clean the kitchen and the bathrooms, then cut the branches and leaves of the tree in the backyard down, then tend to the garden, which was always his last chore. He'd have to forget about doing his homework, a decision he had already made, though he wouldn't be able to think straight in the heat, and his parents would surely not turn the air conditioning on while he was cleaning the bathrooms. By the time he opened the door to his house all he could think about was taking a shower and going to bed, the only things he looked forward to anymore.

He didn't know what he was going to find when he opened the door to Chemistry. A quick scan of the classroom revealed everything to be normal: it was at halfway capacity and Mr. Marshall wasn't in the room, Rockzo was seated at the table, his hair dyed a neon orange color, and Nathan and Pickles were both present and appeared to be engaged in conversation. Still, Toki took his seat feeling uneasy, like everything around him was too good to be true.

"K-k-k-hello," Dr. Rockzo said to Toki, smiling. "I do cocaine," he added.

"I know, Rockzo," Toki said absently. He was blatantly staring at Nathan and Pickles. They had their chairs titled towards each other; Pickles was resting his elbow on the table and his head in his hand while Nathan was staring at his (own) lap. They appeared to be talking about what type of fuel Nathan used in his truck, which Toki doubted was the original topic of conversation, and though their response to each other were clipped and their facial muscles tight, they were both smiling a little. It was pleasant to see.

Toki wished he could say he was curious about how they had reunited, but he wasn't. He cared about their friendship, but only to the extent of which it affected him, and if they were in each other's good graces then that was good enough for him. They did lab work during Chemistry and Nathan almost spilled some dangerous chemical on himself, which was enough to make Pickles burst out laughing, though Nathan earned a tired lecture about safety from Mr. Marshall; he received lectures of that nature often. When Mr. Marshall's back was turned Nathan flipped him off and Pickles sniggered into his hands, snapping his lab goggles against his face when Nathan glared at him. Nathan cracked a smile; Toki felt hopeful.

Pickles always cleaned up when they did labs in class for Nathan, just like Toki always cleaned up for Rockzo. Toki felt like a housewife, the apron tied around his waist to protect his clothing and gloves on his hands. He had pushed his goggles up on his head when they finished the lab; Pickles was still wearing his. They washed their equipment side-by-side at the sinks. _Wash _wasn't the right word so much as _rinse, _no soap or sponges, just lab equipment held under the tap. Toki was uncertain about this; his chores at home had taught him that a lot of chemical was needed to erase germs.

"So is everything okay with Nathan?" Toki asked. He _truly _felt like a housewife.

"I guess," Pickles said. He looked at Toki, still holding a metal tray under a stream of water. "Don't worry about it."

Liberated, Toki didn't worry about it, or talk about it, except to update Murderface in English class before the test, which went okay; Toki suspected he would receive a C. Today the quote on the board read "Life is short, even for those who live a long time, and we must live for the few who know and appreciate us, who judge and absolve us, and for whom we have the same affection and indulgence. The rest I look upon as a mere crowd, lively or sad, loyal or corrupt, from whom there is nothing to be expected but fleeting emotions, either pleasant or unpleasant, which leave no trace behind them. We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often, and never forget.—Sarah Bernhardt." Toki and Murderface snickered at it, dismissed it as sappy bullshit, but behind his front Toki liked the quote, understood what Sarah Bernhardt was getting at, no matter how lame it might be. The phrases _we must live for the few who know and appreciate us _and _a mere crowd _stuck in his head for the rest of his day.

In 3D Art, his battle axe was almost finished, and he was certain that he would be done with it by the deadline, which was the end of class. All he had left to do was coat it with a finish, which he got to working on quickly. He hoped his teacher would appreciate the dried blood stains he had painted on it; he was trying to go for an antique effect, something a Viking had used many times and loved with all of his Viking heart. It hadn't been his best paint job, but it wasn't his worst, and he was feeling optimistic about the grade he would get. 3D Art kept his G.P.A. afloat. His teacher smiled at him when he gave it to her fifteen minutes before class ended; he was the first one done.

"I like the blood," she said. His teacher was an elderly woman with wispy, curly hair that she wore pulled back in a loose bun, tendrils framing her face. Toki felt a grandmotherly sort of affection towards her; he beamed when she approved of the blood. She was kind of a metal old chick.

In fourth period Pickles was in a benevolent mood, though agitated that he couldn't sleep through the class; they had a test. The test was difficult and the way Toki felt about it existed in stark contrast to the confidence he'd been feeling about his battle axe. When he placed his paper on the pile on his teacher's desk he was certain that he'd failed it, and he didn't really give a fuck. His parents didn't care about his grades; oddly, they just cared that he went to school every day, even when he was ill. Pickles was the first one done and was able to fit in a small nap, head on his desk and becoming nothing but a pile of red dreads.

"That test was hard," Toki muttered as they walked to lunch.

Pickles shrugged. "I don't know, I thought it was kind of easy." Toki knew this wasn't a lie; Pickles was a genuinely good student, could be one of the better ones in the class if he actually put effort into his work. He was smarter than people thought, and that was something that Toki liked about Pickles, his intelligence and the fact that he wasn't a stuck-up bitch about it. Pickles was noble in his apathy.

Pickles sat with them at lunch, next to Nathan and across from Murderface and Toki. Toki had another raisin granola bar; his mother hadn't been shopping recently. Fridays were pizza days and so the others were eating pizza, which was actually pretty good as far as school food went. Nathan had gotten four pieces, spending a ludicrous amount of money on lunch, and gave Toki the half with the curst of one.

"Thanks," Toki said, through a mouthful of pizza. He swallowed his bite and went to take another one, but Nathan's sharing of his pizza reminded him of something. "We're still going to see Fuckface Academy tomorrow, right?"

"Mmmph," Nathan said around the food in his mouth.

Toki took this as a yes. "Then can your parents call mine tonight?"

Nathan nodded; Toki took another bite of his pizza.

Lunch ended too soon, a feeling that Toki had felt often before this week but had forgotten in the midst of uncomfortable lunches spent without Pickles. It was bittersweet, wishing for more time and being happy that at least he had the want for more time with his friends. Toki actually remembered to tighten the straps of his backpack before walking to German and encountered no trouble with the pesky things for the rest of the day.

World History before the rift was easily Toki's favorite class. Not because he cared about history, because he didn't, but because the other three had it with him. They sat in the back of the classroom, Toki's desk bumping the wall. Their teacher was one of those that everybody liked but they couldn't stand, and it was fun to rile him up. Murderface asked graphic questions about the executions they used during the French revolution, specifically about quartering, drawing it out in gruesome detail until the rest of the class was green around their gills. Nathan, Pickles, and Toki were shrieking with laughter when Murderface finished his dialogue with the exclamation, "I juscht want to know the proper hischtory." Their teacher couldn't argue with a student's earnest curiosity, after all, and nobody doubted that Murderface wanted to know more about horrific murders.

Thus, Toki was in good spirits by the time he arrived home. Nathan drove him and the rest; he, Murderface, and Pickles were going to see a movie and harass people at the cinema and adjacent mall. Toki wished he could join them, but if he was going to the show the next day he knew he couldn't. He walked to his house feeling dejected regardless, longing for what other people had and he didn't, like always.

Friday had double the chores, which made sense to his parents but not to Toki. He felt that by this time in the week he deserved a break. Instead he unloaded firewood from his father's car, a ridiculous amount for autumn in Florida lying on a sheet in the trunk, and piled it in the backyard against the house, by the grill. His father went out for more after Toki finished that, which meant that he had to sweep every floor in the house twice in the meantime. He didn't understand why _twice, _but he was never going to ask for clarification. When his father returned Toki unloaded and piled more wood, and by then it was almost dinnertime. Around five-thirty the phone had rung; Toki hoped with all of his might that it had been Nathan's mother to talk to his. He had exited the house before he heard his own mother speak, so he couldn't be sure.

His arms and lower back were aching with strain and overuse by the time he finished the second pile of wood. The sun had set and dinner was in the process of being served. He changed his clothes to something appropriate for dinner, discarding the sweaty, torn up rags he'd been wearing to perform his chores in and putting on an ensemble that resembled more his church clothes. He took his seat at the table and took a drink of water from his glass, served from the tap with no ice. Toki had read somewhere that that was supposed to be healthy for your metabolism, which he doubted his parents knew.

He was thinking about the fact that he'd have to tend to the garden in the dark when his father put his hands on the table and stopped eating, drawing Toki's attention. He smacked his lips and then he spoke three words in gruff Norwegian, Toki's three favorite little words: "You may go."


	3. Skwisgaar Skwigelf

Chapter three, the chapter you've all been waiting for! Maybe. Depending on who you are. I'm a little insecure about this chapter, but uh, there's not much I can do about that. School is awesome but I'm expecting it to pick up so I can't promise anything about my update schedule. Lastly, I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I did writing it!

* * *

Fuckface Academy's show was at a club downtown, not too spectacular or too shabby of a venue. An archaic wooden sign was flapping over the entrance with the name of the place, _Patio Lobo, _displayed proud as a flag. The walls were wood panel and peeling in a stylistic manner, windows on the front too dark and unwashed to see through. The door was meshed and had a metallic doorknob cool to the touch with peeling white paint shoved off to one side. Patio Lobo stood as an independent building but was sandwiched between two strips of shops containing overpriced boutiques, thrift stores, and music stores with 50-cent records on tables out front, the standard downtown array of businesses. It was overall a dingy hipster scumbag deal, exactly the type of place you'd expect a local grunge band to play a show in. Toki was not unimpressed but was wholly underwhelmed, and he did not have high hopes for the interior of Patio Lobo, though he was kind of looking forward to hearing the band.

They weren't allowed in for the next half-hour and they were missing Murderface, who was supposed to arrive with Dick but go home with them. They loitered, standing on the sidewalk outside the music store with the 50 cent records, Nathan thumbing through the bins and Pickles twitching at his side, a cigarette hanging off his bottom lip. Toki people watched with his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts, kicking at the ground with the toe of his shoe. Pickles was drumming out a disjointed beat against his thighs with the palms of his hands, Nathan muttering to himself about the lame selection; no death metal, just glam and hair shit. Pickles stopped drumming and leaned his body over to examine the records. He attempted to defend the genres and did not succeed, Nathan dismissing every word rolling off of Pickles's lips. Pickles sighed and sucked on the end of his cigarette, pointing away from Nathan as he exhaled.

Toki turned around and walked over to the bins. He possessed a significantly larger music taste than Nathan, though probably not as broad as Pickles's, and he found plenty of records he wanted to buy. There were albums worth far more than fifty cents nestled in with the Barbara Streisand shit you would expect to see (even if Toki did sort of like Barbara Streisand; listening to _Somewhere_ was always an enjoyable experience). Shockingly, his parents didn't have a record player or any other relatively modern inventions besides the large television in their living room and the appliances in their kitchen. He leafed through the records with his tongue between his teeth, trying not to collapse into himself with rage and boredom as the emotions swelled and swirled inside of him. He felt dizzy, like he stood up too fast and all the blood had rushed to his head, blinding him. He bit down on his tongue and curled his fingers around a record belonging to some band he never heard of—it looked like a late 80's, early 90's all girls group. He scratched at the record's cover, his short fingernails scraping over the band's logo, anything to distract himself from the feral growl gurgling in his throat.

"Dood," Pickles said, dropping his cigarette to the ground and rubbing it into the sidewalk with the heel of his shoe, "open your mind. Broaden your horizons." This brought Toki back from his haze; he stood up and took his hands from the records, giving his attention to Pickles. Pickles was not looking at the records anymore—he pirated all of his music, a fan of anything and everything illegal—but was leaning against the wall beside them, one foot propped up against the brick, his arms crossed over his chest and his bottom lip between his teeth. Pickles looked—well, Pickles looked _badass,_ the type of guy you wouldn't fuck with. It was something in the narrowness of his eyes and his double eyebrow piercing, Toki decided, that gave Pickles that menacing look. Toki could only desire to possess something similar.

Nathan rolled his eyes and peeled them away from the bins, towards Pickles. "Fuck that," he said simply, not caring to elaborate. He returned his attention to the records, grumbling and groaning and sounding like storm clouds collecting on the horizons he was supposed to broaden. Toki grinned, just a bit, because he knew that if Pickles wanted to see a band that exclusively preformed Gregorian covers of Linkin Park songs—which would be the type of band Pickles would want to see—Nathan would be by his side in the crowd, no matter what. He would probably lower, but he would be there. Toki wished he had a relationship like that, but he couldn't think of anybody with whom he would willingly go to a concert he knew he wouldn't like, though he supposed that wasn't quite the point. The point was that despite the grumblings and the idiosyncrasies, Nathan and Pickles had a relationship that Toki coveted. He would never voice his jealousy out loud, but it was there, sitting at the top of his throat, and it was all he could do to swallow it down.

Pickles sighed and pulled a pack of cigarettes out, slid another between his lips. "Man, these guys better be good," he said, flicking a knock-off Zippo lighter open and huddling around the flame. He lit his cigarette with much fanfare, snapping the lighter shut with his thumb and a flourish when he was finished before slipping it into his pocket again and resuming his previous stance. "I don't trust Murderface's tastes, you know."

"Nobody does," Nathan said, pulling a record from the bin. He turned to Toki and showed him the cover; a Norwegian band, obscure, _Elver av Ejakulere_. The name meant something to the effect of "rivers of ejaculate." Toki snorted and shook his head when Nathan asked, "Do you know these guys?"

"Just 'cause he's Norwegian doesn't mean he knows everything about the place," Pickles said, more to himself than to Nathan. He patted his thighs in the rhythm of an elaborate drum beat, the slap of hard skin hitting tight denim filling the air for some time. Toki moved his sights to the streets and thrust his hands into his pockets once more, staring at the pavement, a cracked gray victim of negligence. There was a small weed burbling up from the sidewalk to his right and he found it kind of pathetic, this attempt at nature in such a desperately urbanized place and he was feeling pretty pathetic in general by now. They'd been out here for maybe fifteen minutes and in that time more people had shown up, collecting in front of the other strip of stores. They were all artsy types that were looking for a cheap show and something with obscurity to hold over their friends' heads or genuine grunge fans clad in ripped jeans and baggy shirts, their faces screwed up in scowls or engaging in pleasant conversation with their cohorts. Everybody was one half of a pair, everybody had a place, but Toki was teetering on the edge of the sidewalk with nobody at his side. When he was out normally, at a show or whatever, the barrage of feelings didn't hit him like this. Usually he felt fine, the sadness overtaking him when he got home, instead of enveloping him in public. Usually. Normally. Not today. Today, he was inexplicably lonely for reasons he could not explain.

Behind Toki Nathan and Pickles were arguing again, once more over glam rock, Pickles saying repeatedly that there was more music than just metal and Nathan was an ignoramus. He was speaking fast and his voice escalated in accented shrillness, so the word "ignoramus" made Nathan laugh hard; the fight was over. Toki wasn't looking but the awkward silence that replaced the bickering was palpable, tensions still high and joining the humidity in the air. It was still hot for October and Toki's hairline was sweating; he wiped at it. He wished he had a cell phone, or a wristwatch, or a fucking _pocket watch, _but he didn't. His pockets were empty. He spun around to Pickles and asked the time.

Pickles took his cell phone out to check; Toki tried not to furrow his brow. "'Bout twenty minutes to show time," Pickles said, eyes still on the screen and thumbs moving, presumably texting somebody. "Murderface says he's gonna be here in—hey, Murderface. And Dick."

Indeed, Murderface and Dick Knubbler had arrived side-by-side. They'd come from Toki's right, in the direction of the other set of stores, which sat on a corner. Murderface was wearing an ill-fitting leather jacket, looking ridiculous in the heat and for the venue, but Murderface was always looking ridiculous. He had his cell phone out and eyes in the direction of it, grunting at Pickles's greeting. Dick Knubbler had on an army jacket buttoned up to his neck and pink-tinted sunglasses; his hair looked like it hadn't been washed for a week. He had a bottle of diet soda in his hand and did not say hello to Pickles until after he took an overly long drink, wiping his upper lip with the back of his hand when he was finished. "Hey," Dick said, drawing out the word in his whiny voice. His mouth opened wide when he talked; he had surprisingly nice teeth, probably artificially whitened.

Nathan walked away from the record bins and to Pickles's side, crossing his arms over his chest. Toki turned so that he was looking fully at Murderface and Knubbler and standing between Nathan and Knubbler but on the outskirts of the foursome. He smiled at the new arrivals, tilting his head. "Hey, guys!"

"Hey," Murderface said, sliding his phone into an inner pocket of his jacket and bothering to speak this time. He looked to his side, at the Patio Lobo sign. "Pretty schweet place, huh?" His jacket hadn't set right when he disrupted it, one side bunched up over his jeans, and he grabbed the front and flicked his hands in a greaser fashion to fix it as he spoke.

"I guess," Nathan said, gracing the conversation with his words as well. Pickles looked at Nathan like he was about to scold him but seemed to changed his mind at the last minute, switching to a smile and returning his attention to Dick and Murderface. He was fidgeting, his lips twitching lightly.

"Dick here'sch gonna get usch in for free, too," Murderface continued, as if he hadn't been talking about this all week. "He knowsch the owner."

"It's true, I do," Dick said. Toki could tell that Dick thought this made him seem impressive, though it really didn't. Apart from being Murderface's only other friend, Dick Knubbler was a source of gossip for Nathan and Pickles. Toki had only met the guy a few time, since he and Murderface tended to hang out independently from the group, like Nathan, Pickles, Charles and Abigail—again, something the others had that Toki didn't unless he counted Rockzo, which he did not—but Toki felt like he had the guy's whole life story. It wasn't that Nathan and Pickles actively disliked Dick; it was that he was, well, a spectacularly weird person. He had dropped out of high school in the tenth grade after setting his lab partner's hair on fire, which was officially an accident but suspicious nonetheless. His parents had kicked him out and he spent a couple of years selling drugs, which is how he met Murderface, and he remained their number one supplier. He had mostly moved on from the drugs now and was trying to become a music producer. He was about eighteen and lived in some scummy apartment downtown with another guy, John Twinkletits, who was creepy in a whole different way. Toki had only met Dick's roommate once, at one of the few parties he'd ever attended, and was glad that that was the extent of his time spent with John Twinkletits. As far as Dick went, Toki liked him well enough. He didn't really _know_ him, but he felt fondly towards anybody who could get him into a show for free.

"Do you know anything about these guys?" That was Pickles, determined to keep the conversation going. He had stopped drumming his thighs and had his arms at his sides. Murderface produced a bag of chocolate-coated candy from somewhere and popped them in his mouth as if they were pills; Dick was still working on that diet soda. He extended a hand towards Murderface without looking and Murderface begrudgingly shook some candy from the bag onto his open hand. Knubbler chased his soda with the handful of candy, smiling just the slightest bit.

"Hmm? Yeah, yeah," He said, after he'd swallowed. He exaggerated his vowels a lot when he talked and it distracted Toki, taking him out of what Dick was saying. "They're a quaint little band from about a town over. Lead guitarist's supposed to be really good. They say he carries the band."

"Who says?" Nathan asked. He jerked his head to get a piece of hair out of his face and stared openly at the bag of candy Murderface had. Murderface sure as sin wasn't going to share his food with anybody else, not after getting mooched off by one person; pure pain sparkled in Nathan's eyes. Toki could tell Murderface was getting off on this, eating the candy with a giant, smug grin and elaborate movements.

"Just—they, I don't know," Dick said. He drank some more soda. "How's school?"

"It sucks," Nathan and Pickles said simultaneously. Pickles did the thing like he wanted to look at Nathan again, his lips jerking. "You're so fucking smart for getting out," Nathan continued. He didn't say it like a compliment, more of a general statement.

"School is just _so oppressive_," Dick said. He bent down and placed the bottle of soda, now half-drank, by his foot on the ground. When he bent back up he straightened out his jacket and flicked his head back in a similar fashion to how Nathan had done it previously, like a horse trying to get rid of a fly. He combed through his hair with his fingers, getting the part back in order.  
"Sure," Nathan said. He still had his arms crossed, one leg sticking out, his figure hulking above them all. "I just thought, you know. That it fuckin' sucks."

"I think it'sch gay," Murderface announced through a mouthful of chewed candy. Toki wrinkled his nose in disgust automatically; he had the same problem with talking with his mouth full and it bothered him when other people did it particularly. Murderface of course had no such shame, smacking his food and talking with his mouth wide open.

"I know you do, hon," Dick said, placing a hand on Murderface's shoulder. Dick was the type of person who always called other people _hon _and placed his hand on their shoulder,no matter what their relationship was. Murderface grunted and swatted Dick's hand away. Dick, unaffected, swung his arm down to his side. He retrieved his bottle of soda and sipped from it.

"What've you been up to, Dick?" Pickles said, making an attempt to draw the conversation back into something feasible. He was still smoking, trying to blow the smoke away from the group, but the wind was blowing in their direction. Toki felt his efforts to be futile; he'd inhaled so much first and secondhand smoke in his lifetime that twenty minutes of Pickles chain-smoking couldn't make the slightest of a difference, and he figured the others to be in similar positions. "Workin' with any bands?"

Dick shook his head. "The scene's kind of dead right now," he said. "That's why I'm here, to see if these guys are any good, you know? Maybe they're looking for a producer. Like I said, I hear great things about their lead guitarist."

"That's pretty cool," Pickles said. He stood on his tiptoes to look over Dick's shoulder, at the crowd of people. "There's a good amount of people here, yeah."

Dick made a noise of agreement.

The crowd swelled throughout the remainder of the twenty minutes. Murderface and Dick walked over to the records, which were new and exciting to them and old news to Toki, Pickles, and Nathan. Nathan sulked to himself, moving into the shadows against the wall of the record store, and Pickles joined Dick and Murderface regardless, offering snobbish opinions that tended to contrast Dick's own snobbish opinions. Murderface chewed his candy noisily and happily until the entire bag had vanished into his cavernous mouth, and then tried to join Pickles's and Dick's conversation, offering uniformed thoughts on various bands. Toki watched as more people flocked around Patio Lobo; it looked like they'd fill the place pretty well, if not to the brim. He wondered if he could get a mosh pit going. The crowd looked adequate, nubile physiques in scant clothing that had the room to move a body in, and he was in the sort of mood that made for good moshing. The more he thought about it the more he really wanted to get a mosh pit going, the urge itching beneath his limbs.

After a while the meshed door swung open and a bouncer appeared, shuffling people in. Dick gave their tickets and the guy nodded at him; they were some of the first people inside. Toki could tell that Dick thought that made him hot shit. He puffed his chest up and was talking loud and boisterous about nothing in particular in the direction of no one in particular. Pickles was humoring him with half-hearted responses, Murderface with grunts. Nathan and Toki were silent, though Toki was busy taking the place in, while Nathan was most likely still sulking.

Patio Lobo was set up with a stage at one end and a bar with tables shoved in a cramped amount of space towards the other, a bunch of room for standing and hopefully moshing in between. The décor was done in browns, peeling posters plastered to the walls, and there were an abundant amount of lighting fixtures embedded in the ceiling. On the stage was the band's equipment, all of the instruments black, surrounded by cheap amps piled on top of each other. One instrument certainly stood out above the others: a shining black-and-white guitar towards Toki's right, set apart from the rest. Their logo was painted over the drums, a sloppy job, the _A _of _Academy _an anarchy symbol with a half-open circle. The stage was pretty well-lit but nobody was on it, the band presumably behind the curtains. The tables towards the back were round and wooden and a bartender, a young man with a stud earring in one ear and a close-cut hairstyle, was cleaning a glass, looking bored by it all. As Toki expected, he was not impressed with the interior, but he was not particularly disappointed. Patio Lobo had a good vibe and lot of potential for an enjoyable night and Toki was beginning to get pumped up, eager for a mosh pit and noisy music fogging his mind. His previous frustrations dissipated and he was looking forward to losing himself and walking out half-deaf, yelling cheerfully throughout the event. The excitement he'd been feeling all week was teeming, spilling over, and he could hardly stomach the wait.

Toki and the rest walked towards the front of the stage, a few feet back. People closed in around them. Toki felt sort of buzzed, as the atmosphere of Patio Lobo felt sort of buzzed. It was good; everything was good; everything was going to be good. There was only a few minutes gap between the crowd and the band appearing on stage, all walking in at around the same time but not in a particularly coordinated fashion.

The drummer took his seat and Toki could feel Pickles, a true percussionist, stiffening as he judged him. The drummer was a tall guy with frizzy blond hair tied back in a ponytail; he was shirtless and had angel wings tattooed across his chest, writing Toki couldn't read in between them. He looked in his late teens, early twenties at most, and had the generally glazed look of a guy who did a lot of weed. Pickles murmured something to Nathan, definitely a ruling on the drummer, and Nathan chuckled in a low, rumbling way. One guy, completely average in every aspect except for his hugely gauged and plugged ears, went over to the guitar to Toki's left and slung the strap around his neck. Judging by the state of the guitar, Toki guessed that he wasn't the lead; the guy fumbled with the instrument just a little as he was putting it on, like he was new to it. Another guy, short with dark hair and wearing a shirt with an elaborate depiction of the inner anatomy of a human being's torso across the front, took the bass from the side and approached the microphone. He was a little sweaty already and smiling a little. His eyes were wide and gave him an earnest, enthusiastic look, but Toki could tell he was nervous.

"A basschist who'sch alchso a vocalischt?" Murderface said, overly loud; the guy heard him and gave him a look.

"Well, it's not _unheard _of," Dick said, more to Murderface than to anybody else.

Toki barely heard what Dick was saying despite the fact he was standing right next to him, as Toki's attention was drawn to the lead guitarist. He appeared to be the youngest in the band, judging by his lithe, youthful frame and absolutely angelic face, the type of guy Toki was jealous of for aesthetics alone. He had come onto the stage just the shortest amount of time after everybody else and looked far more calm, definitely more comfortable, as he strode to his designated position. Even from where Toki was standing he could tell that he had good hands for the guitar: long and lean fingers, veins strengthened and visible from years of playing, and he slung the strap of his instrument over his head with ease. Naturally, he had picked up the gleaming black-and-white guitar to Toki's right, and he looked so natural that Toki knew his mind was going to be blown before the guy played a single note. Unlike the rest of the band, who were dressed in blacks and grays and in the case of their drummer, green cargo pants, this guy was decked in all white: tight white jeans and an oversized, holey white shirt, the front of it tucked into his jeans so he could display his belt buckle: the flag of Sweden. He was truly a marvel, such an astonishing sight that Toki's mouth went dry and his palms began to sweat, his heart thumping loud and hard inside of his chest.

"God_damn_," Dick said, and they all knew he was talking about the lead guitarist.

The bassist-slash-vocalist tapped the microphone with his fingers a few times; the noise resonated throughout the club. He leaned his head down. "Hey," he said. He had a normal voice, not one that sounded like it would make for unique vocals. Sometimes that could be a good sign, though, Toki supposed, and he wasn't about to make assumptions before the band even began playing. "You guys excited?"

The crowd cheered back, shouts and hollers filling the air; a few people whistled, Dick one of them.

The bassist smiled a little and did something with his hands, like he wasn't sure what to actually do with them. "Well, I'm Mark Skively, that's George Desford—" he gestured back to the rhythm guitarist, and then to the drummer—"Ritchie Ledbury—" and lastly the lead guitarist—"and Skwisgaar Skwigelf. We're Fuckface Academy, so prepared to have your face fucked," he said, and he laughed a little, but the sound was obscured by the whooping of the crowd.

Of course, the bassist wasn't done talking. "So the first song we're gonna play is something we literally just cooked up, like, three hours ago," he said, smiling. He had a toothy grin and pronounced canines. "It's called, uh, it's called Trichodesmium Flatwoods, and we have no fuckin' idea what that means." He waited for the crowd to die down before saying, "So this is our never-before-heard, exclusive song, just for you guys," and beginning to play. Toki had hardly noticed that he was cheering until he was one of the last ones, and then he stopped, his face reddening.

Trichodesmium Flatwoods—Toki had no fuckin' idea what that meant, either—began with a low bass surging in, then picked up with the drums, then the rhythm guitar laying down a simple riff. The build-up until the lead guitar and the vocals came in lasted maybe twenty seconds, all of the music clashing together in dissonance, nothing truly fitting together; the individual instruments sounded like they were playing parts of different songs, or solos at the same time. For twenty seconds Toki hated the band, as Toki hated music that was just noise without a purpose, but then the lead guitar came in on a grinding, preposterously fast and outrageously complicated line of sound, trailed by the vocals. Toki's eyes were fixated to the lead guitar's hands—he was playing with a pick, faster than Toki had ever seen, the whiteness of his skin blurring. It sounded like he was improvising, just merely practicing against the backdrop of whatever the fuck his band was doing, and it was beautiful, it was just so beautiful. The lyrics to the song—the bassist-slash-vocalist did indeed have an average range, one that could be enhanced by vocals and the music but was really not—were simple, rather insipid: _we spit on the face of life, we dance on the grave of death, stuck in between, we are undefined, _repeated three times in a row.

Dick swore under his breath, a steady stream of _cock shit damn fuck_, over and over, but Toki could barely hear him. All he could hear was the lead guitar. The song raged on rather repetitively for about a minute but then the bassist-slash-vocalist backed off from the mic, the rhythm stopped altogether, and the drums slowed. The lead guitarist stepped up towards the front of the stage and began to play a solo, a screeching stream of orgasmic guitar for forty-five seconds. He remained composed throughout the whole thing, his body curved in towards the guitar and face cast down on his hands, which is where Toki's gaze was at anyway. When he backed off and the drums picked back up and the rhythm reentered and the bassist-slash-vocalist stepped up and howled out "_Trichodesmium flatwoods, fuck yeah,_" in a surely mispronounced manner, Toki felt legitimately saddened.

At the end of their first song the drummer tossed his drumsticks up in the air and caught them before swinging them into a final clang against the syllables. The lead guitarist did nothing, the rhythm retreated back into himself, and the bassist-slash-vocalist flicked his hair—he had fringe that extended past his right eye—and took the mic in his hands again. "You guys like that?" The crowd cheered back—what else would a crowd do?—and the guy smiled his canine smile. He had an easily readable face, emotions there for all to see, and Toki could tell that he was happy, that he was in the zone. "All right, the next one is called Ex-Knife, and it's about this chick I used to fuck in high school."

Toki couldn't lie—the band sucked. The vocals and the rhythm guitar were barely above average, the bass was dreadful, and the drums were okay. The drummer and the front man had enthusiasm, really put their heart into it, and were both sweaty at the end of song three—which was their classic "Fuck Love, Let's Fuck"—but the rhythm was listless and barely moved at all, just stood there biting his bottom lip and playing the guitar. The lead guitarist didn't move that much either, but he didn't _have _to, just standing there and playing was impressive enough. In a band there was always one guy with more spirit than the rest, who danced and twisted around almost a little too much, and that was definitely the front man, wailing as he played the bass. Toki got a mosh pit going by the fourth song—their other classic, "Bite Me Baby"—and was feeling really fucking good. Nathan was motionless but Pickles was into it, cheering at the appropriate times and rocking in place to the beat of the drums. Dick stared in open-mouthed amazement at the lead guitarist, ogling him like a piece of meat, and Murderface was looking around the room, bored. Toki moshed throughout most of their set, except for when the bassist-slash-vocalist was talking—and that guy sure was a talker, asking for audience feedback and making lame jokes between every song—and Toki's plain white shirt was practically translucent with sweat, his shorts falling off of his hips, his feet aching. But he was feeling really, really fucking good.

There was a small interlude as the band members wiped themselves off and fixed their amps, which had been experiencing problems around the seventh song ("Addled Intercourse") and Toki elbowed his way through the crowd to get back to his friends. His hair was plastered to his forehead and he was panting but he was feeling drunk, wishing he was. Dick went off to get them drinks, which really just meant bottles of water, and Toki couldn't stop smiling. He approached Pickles, butting in between a quiet conversation between Pickles and Nathan.

"Holy shit," was all Toki said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

Pickles smiled at Toki in a way that looked like he should be tilting his head downwards, though he had to tilt it up since he was shorter than Toki and all. "You like them?" He asked, in a demeaning way.

"Fuck no," Toki said, laughing. "They suck! It's just a good show."

Nathan, who had been standing by Pickles's side with his arms crossed over his chest, mumbled something incoherent to the three-quarters-deaf Toki but apparently decipherable by Pickles, who shoved at him.

"How's the moshing?" Pickles asked, yelling over the randy hum of the crowd. Pickles wasn't one for moshing; he had a slight stature and bruised easily, wasn't aggressive enough to really get into the groove of things. He hung back at shows, enjoyed the music and not the crowd like Toki did.

"Awesome!" Toki shouted. He didn't mean to say it at the top of his voice, but he couldn't hear himself if he didn't.

Murderface, who had been doing something with his phone, looked up. "Eh? Aweschome?" Murderface wasn't one for moshing either; he had the opposite problem of Pickles, possessing too large of a build, and the physical exertion wore him out too easily. If Murderface liked a band he would get into the music, but if he didn't he would spend the whole time on his phone, looking around, wandering off, and just being rude. "How the pissch could anything at thisch schitty schow be aweschome?"

"You're the one who fucking insisted on us coming," Nathan said, glaring at Murderface. "It's your fault this band sucks."

"The lead guitar's pretty good, though," Pickles mused, tapping his chin. "Best I've heard in a long time, actually."

"Yeah," Toki said. He wheezed, his chest hurting, coming down from the high, but he could hear the band repositioning themselves behind him and could see Dick approaching with their drinks. The crowd was closing in around them, getting restless in the break in the music, which was admittedly too long. Toki was starting to feel suffocated by the other people and restless himself; he wanted the band to resume playing so he could resume moshing and shake away the claustrophobia.

"Whatever," Murderface mumbled. He put his phone away and accepted a bottle of water from Dick, chugging it.

Toki took his own water and drank half of it before handing it back to Dick and walking over to where the mosh pit was reforming. The band was gearing up to play again, the bassist-slash-vocalist positively radiating with fervor, the drummer doing tricks with his sticks, the rhythm brooding off by himself, and the lead guitarist standing coolly. Though there wasn't a spotlight, the attention was definitely on the lead guitar. Toki was struck by the urge to make eye contact and smile at him but decided against it, instead beginning to grind to the beat of the drums as they hammered out the intro their next song, "Illegal, Trusty, Damn."

The band played a total of fifteen songs averaging two and a half minutes each with some downtime in between that they spent bullshitting with the audience, generally having a good time. The show lasted about an hour and a half, ending at nine o'clock at night, and Toki was feeling light by the time it was over, his head in a different place than his body, felt as if he was floating as opposed to walking. Half the crowd filed out when the band said goodnight and began to disassemble their set. The other half stayed and gravitated towards the back, towards the tables and the drinks, and that's where Toki and the rest of his group went. Dick got them a table and they got a round of drinks with their fake I.D.'s, except for Nathan, who drank from a Coke with a sour expression. He was their designated driver, of course, and despite the fact that he'd get doubly drunk at home, he was still sore over the fact.

"What a show," Pickles said, swirling his whiskey around in his cup. "What a band." He laughed at the last part and the rest of the group joined in.

"They fuckin' schucked, Dick!" Murderface spat, pushing his hands on the edge of the table and rotating to say this in Dick's direction. Murderface scowled when everybody else howled, their laughter from what Pickles had said only escalating.

"Yeah, but the lead guitar," Dick said, whistling. "Holy Christ. If I could get my hands on _that_."

Toki looked over his shoulder, his hands wrapped around some fruity concoction that was actually pretty tasty, at the stage. The bassist-slash-vocalist was not on it, but in the area in front of it, talking with a gaggle of girls who clearly wanted his dick. The rhythm was doing most of the work, the drummer and the lead guitar having a conversation towards the back of the stage, though the lead guitarist didn't seem that involved in what the drummer was saying. The lead guitarist kept looking off to the side and his body was in a different direction than the drummer; he didn't even give him the pleasure of making eye contact. "Yeah," Toki said softly enough that he wasn't heard over the sound of high spirits. "Their lead guitar."

They drank through a few rounds, Toki not drinking as much as the others, killing time before they had to go home. Nathan's curfew was not officially set any actual time, though his parents preferred him home by the time the sun was up, and that was extended to the rest of them by default (except for Dick, who had no curfew.) Toki wanted to smoke and thus restrained from getting too drunk, just enough to add onto how fucking _good _he'd been feeling all night, and he was still feeling pretty fucking good. He laughed at practically everything people were saying—he was a giggly drunk—long and loud, resulting in snorting fits that dissolved into hiccupping and thumping his fists on the table. Dick had his chest puffed up again and kept talking about how this show was his idea and he got them in for free and everybody should be sucking his cock and worshipping at his feet; Murderface was whacking Dick on the back and agreeing with every word that came out of his mouth. Pickles spent more time trying to lighten Nathan up, who was in an utterly _foul _mood. "Your face is gonna get stuck that way," Pickles said, pushing the words through his snickers, since Nathan's face was stuck in such a heavy scowl that he looked practically cartoonish.

When the band had all of their equipment broken down and stored away they walked over to the tables and were hailed as celebrities, girls hanging off of them and guys trying to chat them up. The rhythm guitarist was getting flagged by chicks—Toki had no idea why, for there was truly nothing special about the guy—and the bassist seemed to have already picked out a few girls, entertaining them at a table. The drummer found a horde of guys that all looked like him and were talking to them at a table towards the back. The lead guitarist had shot straight for the bar and ordered something that looked like pure alcohol and began to wander around, sipping at his clear drink. Dick flagged him down, and to Toki's surprise the guy—_Skwisgaar Skwigelf, _Toki remembered—pulled a chair up, rotated it around, and sat on it, overlapping his arms on the edge of the chair and straddling the back with his skinny thighs. He sat directly across from Toki.

"Ja?" He said. His voice dripped with an accent and he spoke in a lazy, drawling style. "What's you wants?" His English was absolutely terrible, and in their uninhibited state, Toki's friends exchanged befuddled glances. They hadn't heard him speak on stage, and his vernacular came as sort of a shock. Toki was too busy trying not to stare, instead directing his gaze towards the table, wondering if he was sitting at pressboard or real wood. He decided it was pressboard after a few seconds, and then he just stared at the patterns. He was intimidated, feeling small—Skwisgaar Skwigelf was the type of guy that had that effect on him, like Pickles but times infinity, where the feeling of wanting to be them would start to slip away and instead Toki would just feel, well, small.

"You were so fucking good," Dick said, slapping Skwisgaar Skwigelf on the back. Skwisgaar Skwigelf grimaced. Having already a slurred style of speaking, Dick sounded ridiculous when drunk off his ass. Toki had respect for Skwisgaar Skwigelf for staying. "I'm a producer. I could do good things for you and your band."

"It ams not my band," Skwisgaar Skwigelf said, almost reflexively, and he sounded bitter. "It ams Mark's, you ams havings to talks to him if you ams wantings to gets anywhere."

Dick screwed his face up as he tried to work out what Skwisgaar had said. When it hit him, he unscrewed his face and announced, "It should be your band. You're _amazing._"

The flattery made Skwisgaar smile. "Ja," he said. It wasn't a question; it was an agreement. Skwisgaar Skwigelf was amazing and Skwisgaar Skwigelf knew it. It was evident in the way he carried himself, haughtily with proper posture, in the way that he spoke at his own pace, and the way that he wore an amused expression constantly. This was what Toki had found out in the minute amount of time he had been acquainted with Skwisgaar Skwigelf, at least.

"Let me buy you some drinks," Dick said, waving his arm through the air in a wide, sweeping manner. A waitress that had appeared after the show was over came to their table, and she looked like a waitress who had to deal with nothing but drunken men during her shift, like she wanted to break a beer bottle over her head and drink the shards. "Stay, talk."

"Ja, okay," Skwisgaar said. He was indulging them; it was obvious, as if he had nothing better to be doing and might as well amuse himself. Dick indeed bought Skwisgaar some more drinks, throwing garbled words at the waitress, and Skwisgaar stayed, and Toki was surprised by this indeed.

"So where're you from?" Dick asked when Skwisgaar was sucking down his second drink, straight vodka. He didn't seem drunk in the slightest; Toki gathered that he could hold his liquor pretty well. The conversation had splintered to something between just Dick and Skwisgaar, everybody else watching on in amazement. Toki had already deduced that Skwisgaar spoke with a Swedish accent and judging by the belt buckle was probably Swedish, but he wasn't about to leap into this conversation and he doubted that any of his friends knew what the flag of Sweden looked like, so he kept his mouth shut.

"Sweden," Skwisgaar said, and the pride in his voice was apparent. He shook his glass around a little before he drank from it, bobbing happily. "I comes here maybe seven months ago. I leaves Sweden, and I keeps buying plane tickets, and it boughts me here."

"That is fucking fascinating!" Dick said, and he thumped Skwisgaar on the back again; he didn't grimace this time. "That is a story you could really sell." He was speaking like he had experience in management and production, which he did not, unless half-assing his roommate's band counted. Toki supposed that it _could_, but not in the sense that Dick wanted it too.

"I subpose," Skwisgaar said. He did the thing where he shook from his glass before drinking from it again, and this time he tipped his head back, his Adam's apple exposed and dipping while he drank. Perhaps he was beginning to get a little bit tipsy, or maybe he acted like this all the time; Toki had no idea. He wanted to find out, though.

"How do you like it here?" Pickles chimed in at this point. He sounded hesitant but friendly enough that you couldn't reasonably pick up on it, swirling the whiskey in his glass around. Pickles had one hand under the table and one on his glass and he was sitting farther away from Nathan and closer to Toki than he normally did. Pickles was a friendly drunk and he was smiling brazenly, his lips threatening to split his face in two.

"It ams okays," Skwisgaar said. "It ams nothings in compariskon with Sweden, dough."

Toki couldn't help it; he was raised in Norway, and even though Norway held terrible memories, he loved his country, and Skwisgaar just looked so goddamn _self-righteous _as he spoke about Sweden, and so he proclaimed, "Norway is better!" After saying it, he fought the urge to clamp his hands over his mouth and dissolve into the floor.

Skwisgaar looked directly at Toki—the eye contact was making Toki quiver and now he was fighting the urge to yelp and dive beneath the table—and raised a single eyebrow. "Reallys?" He asked, smirking.

The demeaning attitude was beginning to wear thin on Toki, intimidation and awe replaced with a sense of annoyance. "_Really_," he responded, glaring and hissing the word between his teeth.

"What ams so great about Norways?" Skwisgaar asked, staring at Toki in a blatantly challenging manner, one eyebrow raised.

"Everything," Toki said, staring back just as equally hard. The rest of the table had gone silent, watching their back-and-forth, though the din of the club was hanging behind their heads as background music. Toki was losing the sense of being small, growing inside, getting riled up again, but he was a little too intoxicated to justify how Norway might be better than Sweden. He grappled for an answer, his mouth flapping open and shit stupidly, and frustration coated his body as he finally let his forehead fall to the table. The pressboard hurt when he hit it. He felt ultimately stupid for more reasons than just being unable to defend Norway.

"Well," Skwisgaar said, drawing out his words. Toki could hear the thick smugness in his voice, thick as smog, and Toki's cheeks were hot pressed against that pressboard. "I cans assures you dat Norway is dildos." Toki raised his head just enough to watch Skwisgaar; Skwisgaar shot the rest of his vodka back after he said this, finally lowering that goddamn eyebrow. Dick immediately ordered him another drink, desperate for Skwisgaar to stay.

"Heh, dildos," Pickles said, chuckling. "That's a good one."

Skwisgaar somehow managed to lean back, basking in the glow of the admiration of the table, which was plain to see and tangible. Dick stared at Skwisgaar like he was a god incarnate, like he was his own personal savior. Murderface _tried _to look like he didn't give a fuck but he clearly did, sneaking glances at Skwisgaar when he thought the others weren't looking. Pickles, good-natured as always, behaved in his good-natured way, and even Nathan wasn't _completely_ moody anymore. Toki couldn't see why—Skwisgaar was getting on his last nerve for inexplicable reasons. He couldn't really explain why, except that he didn't like guys that were full of themselves, or that dismissed others' thoughts so easily, or that thought they were the ultimate shit, even when they sort of were. He had to admit that Skwisgaar was pretty fucking cool. Fuck. He didn't know. Clearly, he was too intoxicated to be making proper judgments at this hour.

"Where'd you learn to play guitar like that?" Dick asked, trying to ease the conversation away from Toki and Skwisgaar, who were still locked in a staring contest. Toki had learned not to blink from his childhood; Skwisgaar seemed to have been born without the need to. The contest did give Toki and excuse to observe Skwisgaar more closely; he had very blue eyes and long, fine eyelashes, almost transparent but glittering, since he was a blond, his hair rolling down past his shoulders and towards his midsection. He was blond in a yellowish way, unlike the drummer who was blond in a brownish way, and Toki didn't know if Skwisgaar's hair was _naturally _that nice or if he cared for it particularly well. He wondered what it smelled like, and he thought that if he knew then he would find the answer to his question. Skwisgaar did look like the type of guy that took superb care of himself and his body; his skin was smooth and somehow the smoothness managed to accent his face, his high cheekbones, the cut of his jaw. What Toki had initially thought was confirmed during their little contest—Skwisgaar was an aesthetic spectacle and Toki had lost whether he wanted to _be_ him or to just _look_ at him along the way.

Skwisgaar shrugged and didn't break away from Toki's gaze. "I just did," he said. "I ams a natural." His eyes flashed as he spoke; Toki felt hot beneath his shirt, when he had been feeling sort of cold, the dampness of the material from his sweat catching up with his now motionless state.

"Fuck yeah, you are," Nathan said. "What? He was pretty good," he continued, after Pickles shot him an incredulous look.

"How hard could playing grunge be," Toki muttered, though he knew it was a stupid thing to say. He was looking off towards the side now, not wanting to look at Skwisgaar despite the fact that he really wanted to look at Skwisgaar, and he could hear his scoff in response to Toki's comment.

"As if you could does any betters," Skwisgaar said. Toki darted his eyes to get another look at him—he was doing the stupid eyebrow thing again and hadn't broken his share of the staring. At this point, Toki was too busy feeling idiotic over how stunned and impressed he'd been with Skwisgaar at first, when he was just a figure on stage without a personality. Off stage he was an asshole, and Toki shouldn't have been so impressed with an asshole. He didn't like assholes; assholes were, well, assholes. He tried not to associate with them and the problem was that apart from how much Skwisgaar was irritating him at the moment, he had a nagging fear that Skwisgaar would realize how lame they were—Toki's lameness spoke for itself, Pickles was okay, Nathan had a sort of pathetic life, so did Murderface, and Dick's life was _really _pathetic—and leave, never to be seen again. Toki didn't want that, he wanted Skwisgaar to remain at their table, and he wanted to look at Skwisgaar and talk to him forever, and he couldn't explain that, so instead he averted his eyes and glared at the table.

"Boys," Dick said and he cleared his throat, like the rest of the table were children and he was this amazing adult, although nobody knew how old Skwisgaar was, "be civil, now."

Skwisgaar paused in his actions for a second, like he was considering Dick's words. "Okays," he said, after some thought. "Ams you from Norway?" He asked, still looking exclusively at Toki. Toki dared to reestablish eye contact, and he was afraid that if he kept it for too long he would literally combust.

"Yes," Toki said, though his response was clipped, terse. His jaw was tight and his hands were sweaty and he was aware of how loud the rest of the club was; people were carrying on conversations gleefully around them, like Toki's world _wasn't _about to collapse into itself, and inwardly he was blaming this on how drunk he was. The place still had good vibes and this added to his intoxication.

"You speaks pretty good Enklish," Skwisgaar said conversationally. He had placed a single elbow on the chair edge and rested his hand in it, taking little drinks from his vodka. His lips curled in an odd way when he spoke, exposing his teeth, which were nice like Dick's but not in an artificially whitened way. Unlike his personality, as far as appearance went, Skwisgaar could do no wrong.

Toki shrugged. He was beginning to feel placated by Skwisgaar's presence and that had the opposite effect of making him feel not at ease in Skwisgaar's presence and he didn't know what the fuck was going on with his feelings so he tried to shove his way through them and have a normal conversation. "I moved here when I was ten. I had a lot of time to learn. Not like you, apparently."

Skwisgaar shrugged. "I talks it good enough to understands, ja? There ams no need to wastes my time." The tone of his voice had changed; it was lazy again, but not in a bad way, and all aggression— or maybe that wasn't the right word for it, but Toki couldn't come up with a better one — had evaporated from it. He was looking only at Toki, not even responding to Dick's attempts at speaking, and Toki couldn't explain why that was making him mad. He was still working on just saying fuck-all to these pesky emotions; he would deal with them later.

"I like languages," Toki said. He said it with caution; he was still uncertain of Skwisgaar in general, and the things he was making him feel, and he wasn't having much luck with the repression ideal. He opened his mouth to elaborate on his statement—he liked languages because he couldn't speak at home, because he was fascinated with the ways other spoke, because expression through words was just another thing other people had that he didn't, and he had had ample time to learn English because he didn't have anything else to do in his free time—but he realized that maybe that wasn't something you said to people you just met, so he shut it again.

"Dat's nice," Skwisgaar said, and maybe it had the slightest bit of a condescending tone, but that put Toki at ease more than the conversational one had. He fought the urge to sigh in relief and listened to the rest of what Skwisgaar had to say. "I likes guitar."

Toki snorted. "Dat's obvious," he said, and he reddened a little when he realized that he had adopted Skwisgaar's pronunciation of his _t's_. He blamed it on the fact that Swedish and Norwegian accents were similar, and he had struggled with his own _t's _when he had first started learning English. Luckily, it was subtle enough that nobody else had noticed, and being red-faced was just a side-effect of being intoxicated. He doubted anybody else would've cared if they weren't wrapped up in their own conversations—Dick and Murderface were speaking with their foreheads almost together and Pickles had spun on his chair to face Nathan—but Toki cared.

"Ams it?" Skwisgaar said, and he smiled. It was a genuine smile, not a condescending one, and Toki returned it without meaning to.

"Well, you're so good at it," Toki said, and he had to translate the words to Norwegian and back again before he could say them, which was something that did not happen often. He blamed Skwisgaar and his butchering of the English language for making Toki forget how to properly speak. "You wouldn't be that good if you hated it."

"Dat's true," Skwisgaar said. He curved his upper body around; Toki heard his back stretch. Toki wondered if standing on stage like that would cause soreness, wondered how Skwisgaar remedied it. He was about to ask, but Skwisgaar wasn't finished speaking, and Skwisgaar didn't seem like the type of person you would willingly interrupt. "Why does you comes to dis show?"

"Well," Toki said, and he had to think back to remember why he had actually come to this show, because now he wanted to say _to witness your godly guitar skills _and that wasn't the right answer, "Dick got us in for free." He gestured to Dick; he wasn't sure if he and Skwisgaar had exchanged formal introductions yet.

"Did you likes it?" Skwisgaar quirked his eyebrow again. Toki wished he would stop doing that.

"Um," Toki said. He racked his brain for an appropriate response that would not be too offensive or too flattering and came up short.

Skwisgaar laughed, and it was a pleasant sound, though a little awkward. He sounded like he didn't laugh often, or at all, the sound of his laughter rusty and his mouth unaccustomed to the motions. Toki found it sort of endearing, wanted to make him laugh more so he could iron out all the kinks in it and perfect it, because there shouldn't be anything about Skwisgaar that wasn't perfect. "Dis band sucks," Skwisgaar said when he stopped laughing. "But we ams playingks another show, next Saturday, at a festivitivals, in dis area. You shoulds comes." Toki registered with some embarrassment that Skwisgaar had not stopped holding eye contact with him, was speaking to him, was inviting _him_, and not the rest.

Toki opened his mouth to answer Skwisgaar, but Dick found the gap in conversation as an opportunity to leap in. "We would love to come!" He exclaimed, clapping Murderface and Skwisgaar on the shoulders both at once. "And you should really think about my offer."

"I will talks to Mark about it," Skwisgaar said, and then he stood up and stretched. Toki gaped at him while he did so; Skwisgaar was thin, in an appealing way, his limbs lean. Skwisgaar closed his eyes while he stretched, reaching his arms up over his head, and he was quite tall, taller than Nathan even. When he came down Toki averted his eyes before Skwisgaar could open his own and catch Toki staring, because Toki had the feeling that Skwisgaar would look at him in a way like he knew something, and that would make Toki feel uncomfortable. Skwisgaar straightened out his clothes, tucking his shirt behind his belt buckle and readjusting it, and then he spun the chair around so it fit snugly against the table in the proper manner. "Well, I ams goingks to finds a slut to fucks," he said, and this was met with a chorus of approving hoots around the table, though Toki remained quiet. His silence went unnoticed in the congratulatory, approving uproar. Toki could not explain why this made incredibly angry feelings rise in him, but it did, and it was scary, and he had no idea how he was going to deal about anything in the moment.

Skwisgaar walked away, towards the group of girls Mark had already picked out, and Toki watched him go with narrow eyes. Skwisgaar would have absolutely no problem finding a slut to fuck; Toki doubted there was a girl in the bar who didn't want him. Toki was feeling jealous, but he wasn't quite sure of what or who he was jealous of, and he was too drunk to figure it out but not drunk enough that he would forget it. He didn't want to get any drunker; he wanted to get high, he decided.

"What a guy," Dick said, sighing. He fiddled with his sunglasses, setting them right on his nose. He was leaning back and almost fanning himself, overwhelmed by how impressed he was by Skwisgaar. "What a guy."

"Let's get out of here," Toki said, standing up. Skwisgaar had taken a seat at the other table and Toki did not want to watch him woo a woman or whatever. "I want to get high," he said, for needless explanation afterwards.

"Fine by me," Nathan grunted, and they were off. Dick paid for everybody and Toki thought the tab had to be high, but they didn't say anything. They stumbled out of the club, the walk from the table to the door feeling twice as long as it did coming in, and Dick winked at the bouncer on the way out.

They drove Dick home; though he had taken his car and parked downtown, he lived close enough that he could walk and retrieve it in the morning. Dick lived in the shittiest of the shitty apartments, on the seventh floor. Toki had only been there once, at the party where he met John Twinkletits, and he wouldn't mind if he never went inside again. Dick walked straight into the entrance like he was tackling a red carpet entrance, but he tripped over his feet when he was a few inches away from the door and Murderface burst into uproarious laughter. Murderface's ludicrous laugh was contagious and Toki returned to that feeling of feeling really fucking good as they drove home. Nathan lived in the middle of town, about fifteen minutes from Dick's apartments, and being near ten o'clock on Saturday night traffic was thick. The atmosphere in the car was jovial, affecting even the temperamental Nathan, and he didn't suffer as badly from road rage as he would've if they hadn't just attended a fucking awesome show by a fucking terrible band and met a pretty cool guy.

Nathan pulled in front of his house, parking his truck behind his mother's soccer mom SUV, and they spilled out of the doors. Pickles fell, landing in the dirt between sidewalk and road, and Nathan clutched at his stomach, shaking with how hilarious this was, before proffering a hand to help Pickles up. Murderface called them fags but that didn't mean anything so they all went into Nathan's house. His parents were sitting in the living room watching the news—some car crash on some bridge covered live—and Nathan said hello to them before Toki and the rest entered the kitchen. They were being brash, making a lot of noise without meaning, slamming cabinets and rifling for snacks. Toki found some taffy on the counter and chewed on that; Pickles stuck a frozen pizza in the oven; Murderface grabbed a container of frosting from the pantry; Nathan fished out leftovers from dinner, which had been homemade fried chicken, and bit off the skin from a leg. Pickles sat on the counter by the stove while he waited for his pizza to cook; Toki hopped up on the one on the other side of the stove. Nathan remained standing, propping the refrigerator open with his foot for easier access to food, and Murderface sat at the kitchen table, scooping vanilla icing out with a spoon.

They stayed in those positions while Pickles's pizza cooked and bullshitted about school, life, the car crash that was on the bridge, everybody on edge in a pleasant way from the show and the night. Nathan's parents went to bed shortly thereafter, walking through the kitchen to get to their room, and they shook their heads in a fond sort of way at the group of boys sprawled out over their kitchen. Toki's heart was bursting with the amount of which he felt like he belonged here, in a scene taken directly from somebody else's better life, and he thought that the only thing missing was just one more companion. Nathan and Pickles had each other, which left Toki and Murderface, but Murderface had Dick and Toki didn't want Murderface anyway. The hollow ache wasn't as strong as it had been in times past, and although he felt like he was missing something he still felt so amazing, so right, and so lost to these aforementioned feelings that he jumped when Pickles jumped down to retrieve his pizza from the oven

Toki had finished his taffy and had grabbed for a bag of corn chips, eating them without salsa. Murderface had made his way through half of the icing and pushed it off to the side, spoon still sticking out of the can. Pickles took his pizza out of the oven—it was one of the huge kinds meant to serve a whole family—and carried it with him as he started to walk towards the stairs. Nathan took a jar of salsa from the refrigerator and nodded to Toki as an indication to bring the chips up, and Toki did, and then they were on the stairs, everybody quiet in concentration so they wouldn't trip and spill their food.

Pickles placed the pizza on Nathan's computer desk and went immediately to his bedside table, where Nathan's stash of weed was. He rolled a blunt and took a hit immediately, sighing hard, then handed it down to Toki; Toki had taken his usual place under the windowsill. Everybody got the food they wanted and formed a square, Toki and Pickles under the windowsill and Murderface and Nathan across from them respectively. Nathan had retrieved a bottle of booze from his closet and was drinking straight from it; Murderface had gotten shitfaced at the club and was still reeling from that. Toki and Pickles smoked, passing the blunt back and forth, until Toki felt he was high enough. Pickles, who never seemed to reach that limit, never stopped smoking.

"Scho we're going nescht weekend, right?" Murderface asked, dipping a chip into the jar of salsa, loading the poor thing with as much as it could take. He got salsa all over his chin as he placed the chip inside of his mouth, and he stuck his tongue out to lick it all up.

"Fuck, I mean, do you guys want to?" This was Nathan. He was sitting Indian-style with the booze between his thighs, looking above Pickles and through the window at the night sky.

"If I don't got anything better to do," Pickles said, shrugging, at the same time Toki said, "Fuck _yes._" Toki's response garnered stares from his friends; he shrugged. "It was a good show," he said, as way of explanation. It had been—despite the shitty band, it had been a wonderful time, and Toki would like to experience it again. He jumped at any opportunity to get out of the house as well. Besides, he kind of wanted to see Skwisgaar again, and he felt like if he went to the festival Skwisgaar would talk to him.

"How about that Skwisgaar, huh?" Pickles said, and Toki startled, thinking Pickles had somehow read his mind. "What a guitar playin' douchebag," Pickles continued. He was sitting with his legs folded beneath him, following the conversation with his eyes.

"Fucking great guitar player," Nathan said. He turned his head down towards the liquor in his lap and picked it up, unscrewed the cap. "Fucking horrible person."

"I'd kill myschelf if I wasch hisch bandmate," Murderface said, nodding his head. "No queschtion. Juscht—" and he made a motion, drawing his finger across his neck, like he was slicing his own throat open.

"Never met such an arrogant douchebag in my life," Pickles said. "Dick was all over him, though. He's probably jackin' himself off to the memory of his riffs." The group chortled; Toki joined in, mostly because it was true. "Seriously though," Pickles said when the collective laughter had died down, eyes wide.

Murderface leaned over to get another chip; he was the only one still eating. "Dick lovesch guysch like that," he said. "He schayschs that they're alwaysch lookin' for a way to get bigger, so they're more open to producersch."

Pickles nodded up and down several times, his dreads bouncing against his shoulders. "I'm just sayin', he was a douchebag." He crossed his arms over his chest, the joint burning on the tray between Pickles and Toki, and made a noise in this throat indicating that that was his final conclusion.

"I'll drink to that," Nathan said, and he did.

Toki was silent throughout the discussion about Skwisgaar, which made Pickles look over at him, his pupils blown, poke in him the side and say, "He was speakin' only to you, wasn't he? Toki here must be lovesick, eh?" This was met with a chorus of laughter that Toki did not join in on He wouldn't contemplate something as absurd as that in his current state—he would wait to dissect what had occurred that night at a later date and try to enjoy himself in the present moment. He decided that he was not, in fact, high enough, and he snatched the blunt from Pickles's hand.

They fucked around in Nathan's room for a few hours, Nathan blasting his favorite music so he could "rewire their brains after that Fuckface Academy shit," Toki and Pickles attempting to play a game of Go Fish, and Murderface taking his pocketknife out of his jacket and turning the blade over in his hands, admiring it. Toki and Pickles eventually got sick of Go Fish and found a box that contained everything necessary for Checkers and then some in Nathan's closet, and they tried to play that for all of five minutes before they ended up trying to stack the pieces on top of each other in a black-and-red tower of plastic chips. Nathan's music, however, was sending hefty vibrations through the floor and their attempts were foiled, their tower tumbling down. They rolled over onto their backs and laughed, Pickles wheezing and Toki hiccupping, until Pickles somehow managed to fall asleep. By this time it was one in the morning and Murderface had already passed out, snoring and propped on his side with his back to the wall opposite Nathan's bed, his leather jacket laying over him like a blanket and his arms wrapped around his pocket knife like it was a teddy bear. Nathan stripped and put on a pair of gray pajamas before lumbering into his bed, where he passed out almost immediately. Toki stayed on his back, lying near the computer desk—Pickles had been on the opposite side of the checkers board and had curled into a ball in his sleep, in the corner between Nathan's bedside table and the wall.

Toki was the last one to fall asleep that night, lying on the floor of Nathan's bedroom and staring at the ceiling while listening to the rest of the room snore. He counted the cracks in the ceiling through the darkness of the room before his eyes began to droop and his body began to drift and he could not fight it anymore. He muttered to himself, "Dat's nice," in a fond voice of a fond memory, and fell asleep before he could realize what he had just said.


	4. Interlude

**A/N: **This is long overdue and the shortest chapter yet and I really don't like it and just ahhhh I'm so sorry guys! Real life is really stressful and yeah. I have no idea when I'll update next, sorry! Anyawy. This chapter is the one where it gets gay! Not _too _gay, mind you, so don't get excited. Yet.

* * *

Skwisgaar Skwigelf, that motherfucker, had invaded Toki's thoughts and would not leave. When Toki awoke on Sunday, drooling with his face pressed into the carpet despite how he'd fallen asleep on his back, the first thing to enter his mind was a flash of fine hair, a quick riff. In his sleepy state he tried to track the illusive thoughts down but he failed as they fled his mind when he rose from the floor. He attempted to identify the location of the pain flaming up inside his body but could not, deciding that his whole _being_ hurt. It was not so much that he had a hangover (for he did not) but that he had exerted his body beyond its standard level last night in the mosh pit and chased that down with sleeping on the floor, whose plush carpeting deceived: the boards beneath were rough. Toki was the first one awake, his friends scattered around in the relatively same positions he had seen them in before he fell asleep the night before. The room smelled a little bit, like bad breath and body odor, and Toki scrunched up his nose, realizing with shame that a lot of the smell fumed off his own skin—he had not showered since moshing, after all.

He took his time lifting his body from the ground. He felt sticky all over and he wanted to take a shower, but he didn't like doing so at other people's houses. He would have to wait until Nathan, a notoriously heavy and long sleeper, roused before being able to go home, too. He settled for dragging his feet all the way to the upstairs bathroom and rinsing his face in the sink. Raising his head, he stared at himself in the mirror: the water had made his face red and his hair was a mess, tousled and knotted in the back where he'd slept on it. With the knowledge that combing it would only make it worse at this point he exited the bathroom. His clothes from last night, the cargo shorts and t-shirt, felt gross against his skin. He was not a hygiene enthusiast by any means but he had moshed his ass off last night and the aftermath was not attractive in the least.

He went downstairs and was not surprised to see that Nathan's parents had not woken up yet, either; it was only seven thirty in the morning, according to the digital clock on the stove in the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and retrieved a jug of milk, poured himself a glass after sniffing for freshness, and took a banana from the produce basket on the counter. He sat down at the kitchen table and peeled the banana, eating it before he drank his milk. The light in the kitchen was off but morning rays poured through the windows, creating a bluish effect. Toki stared at the table while he had his breakfast, wishing vaguely that he wasn't alone while he did so but not minding as much as usual. It was there at the Explosions' kitchen table that Skwisgaar came to mind a second time. With his mouth pressed to the rim of the glass of milk the memory of Skwisgaar's sneering face jumped out at him—that curl of the lips, the one eyebrow raised—Toki sputtered on his milk and set the glass down on the table. "What de fucks," he muttered, too distracted by the face in his mind, hanging just behind his eyes, that would not get out to acknowledge what he had just said.

He finished his breakfast and rinsed his glass in the sink before realizing that he had nothing to do. He didn't want to wake anybody in the house up, so he settled on watching television in the basement with the volume down low. He didn't get to watch television often and possessed next to no knowledge about the shows currently airing, so he spent most of the time channel surfing for something he liked. He eventually found a Lifetime movie to watch and curled up on the couch, hugging a pillow with the lower half of his face pressed into it, his knees bent up. The movie was about a woman who appeared to be in her early thirties that worked at a bakery and fell in love with a stock broker of a similar age. The guy always ordered two cinnamon rolls at the woman's bakery; that's how they met. The movie made a big deal about the revelation that the man didn't even like cinnamon rolls, but went to his deceased wife's grave every morning before work and ate breakfast "with" her, since her favorite food had been cinnamon rolls, and that he always left one atop her grave. Toki thought it was sort of lame, but he had to admit that he cried, tears rolling down his cheek as he sniffed along with the heroine. He felt sort of empty when it was over.

He had heard movement upstairs halfway through the movie but had been too engrossed to see who it was but now minus the movie, curiosity sparked inside of him. He shut the television off after the credits began to roll and peeled his body apart, feeling a little drained from the emotional toll the movie had wrecked on him; he was light and his limbs didn't quite work right. The dizzying remainders of Skwisgaar, settled and sleeping in his brain, did not help him in the least. He pulled himself up the basement stairs and into the hallway, where he found Murderface leaning against a wall with his phone out, baring his teeth at the screen.

Murderface snapped his phone shut and threw it into his pocket when he saw Toki, his eyes going wide. Murderface shook his head, blinked a couple time, smiled, and rubbed the palm of his hands against his legs. Toki looked at Murderface with his head tilted, but didn't speak about his strange behavior. Instead he said, "Hello, Moidaface." He gripped the railing of the stairs to the basement, almost as if to ground himself, get himself into the conversation.

"What'd you call me?" Murderface said, sounding gruffer than usual. He had lost the leather jacket from the night before and his hair had twisted itself around his head, but something in the way he was looking at Toki was genuinely frightening.

"Murderface," Toki said. He flicked his head, partly to get a piece of hair out of his face and partly out of confusion with Murderface.

"O_kay_," Murderface said. "I'm schure _that'sch _what I heard. Anyway. Nathan and Picklesch are schtill schleeping, damn them. I was juscht about to come down to the baschement. What were you doing down there, jackin' off?"

"Watching television," Toki said. They were still standing in the hallway; Murderface had stepped away from the wall a little bit. The encounter had a surreal feeling to it, like Toki wasn't fully in the conversation but instead watching it from far away with minimal control over what he said and did. The whole day had that sort of feeling, actually, and Toki was beginning to feel off. The laughter of another boy hung behind his ears and a certain face behind his own, _there _but not quite, everything blurred and blurring even harder when he tried to get a grasp on it. The weight in his chest, the obstruction in his mind, the sensations spreading through his body with his bloodstream—yes, he chalked it up to Skwisgaar Skwigelf. He could not stop thinking about him and he did not know why and this had created a blockade in his brain. He couldn't focus on the current moment, but was stuck in the past, in the future. He squeezed the knob on top of the stair railing heard.

"Anything good on?" Murderface asked, attempting to arrange himself into a casual position and failing. He fidgeted, stuck his hands in his pockets and pulled them out, shifted his weight around, and tried leaning on the wall at one point. Toki _noticed _Murderface's peculiar behavior, if that was what Murderface was looking for, but Toki couldn't bring himself to care; he had issues of his own at the moment. Like the way he was about to break the railing.

"No, not really," Toki said, with apprehension. He had no idea what he was saying. He was looking down the hallway, half expecting the rest of his friends to show up and take him home where he could do his chores and hinder his thought process and not feel so strange. But they did not, and Toki was left to somehow carry on this conversation, and he was doing about as good of a job at it as Murderface was at appearing casual.

"Well," Murderface said, "guessch I gotta go find schomething, then." He pushed past Toki and started lumbering down the stairs, considerably more loudly than Toki had done previously. Toki thought that perhaps he should follow Murderface and that that was what the situation warranted, but he couldn't make his body do that. He felt sleepy again, unable to concentrate on life and slow, so he made his way to the family room in the back of the house. The family room had another television and another couch in it, but it was the only television without nine-hundred channels and a recording device, so nobody ever came back here. The room was secluded, hidden behind a set of offices and a bathroom, so Toki could sneak a few more hours of sleep without interruption. Ceiling-to-floor south-facing windows pushed light into the room, but Toki didn't mind. He settled on the couch with a scratchy blanket; this room was the coldest in the house, even with the windows. He wrapped his arm around a small pillow and fell asleep, the ghost of a man perched in the corner of his brain, a face and a voice and a laugh dulled behind his senses.

In comparison to earlier in the morning, Toki woke up for the second time not by himself, but by a hand shaking his shoulder. Toki opened his eyes and rolled over to reveal Pickles holding a tray with a plate of French toast and a steaming coffee mug, wearing a smile. He ruffled Toki's hair and placed the tray on Toki's chest before sitting down on the floor beside the couch, the top of his head near Toki's torso. Toki, too tired to process everything, struggled to keep his eyes open as Pickles began to speak.

"Rough night last night, huh?" Pickles said. "Hand me a piece of French toast."

"I guess," Toki said as he passed a piece of French toast to Pickles. He picked a piece up for himself and began to chew; it wasn't homemade, just microwaved, but he loved it all the same. "Hva er klokka—I mean, um, what time is it?"

"It's about half past one. Nathan's still asleep," Pickles said through a mouthful of French toast, "and Murderface fell asleep too downstairs, we were watchin' some wrestlin' thing and he just starts snoring." Pickles paused, like he was thinking about saying some else, but then shook his head and continued talking. "I got bored. I'm sorry if I woke you up too bad." He twisted around and grinned at Toki, his eyes crinkling, genuine.

"No, no it's not a problem," Toki said. He swallowed his French toast and pushed the tray down his body. He sat up and moved backwards to rest his back against the arm of the couch, scratchy blanket and French toast tray resting in his lap. He drank some coffee and asked, "Really, Pickle, what'd you think of Fuckface Academy?"

"I thought they sucked," Pickles said, nodding. "But the lead guitarist was fantastic. A douchebag, yeah, but fantastic." He turned his head back around and reached his hand back for more French toast.

Toki closed his eyes. He had sought Pickles's opinion of Skwisgaar and was not surprised by the result. He fought to stifle a sigh, in addition to the memory of Skwisgaar looking at him in that stupid goddamn dick way Skwisgaar looked at him. "'Kay," he said as he plopped another piece of breakfast in Pickles's palm. He no longer felt like discussing Fuckface Academy and replaced words from his mouth with French toast on his tongue; Pickles did the same. When the French toast was gone Toki set the tray on the floor and swung his legs over the side of the couch to make room for Pickles. They shared the scratchy blanket and watched terrible reality shows—Pickles had a thing for trashy whores duking it out, his favorite being any variation on the Bad Girls Club—until Nathan materialized in the doorway, wordlessly beckoning them with his car keys.

Nathan dropped Murderface off first at his house in the redneck part of town, barely above a trailer surrounded by similar structures and a weedy, unkempt yard. Toki's house was next on the route and he left the truck much like he left the truck every time he hung out with his friends: with a heavy sadness nestled in his chest, threatening to colonize his entire being. He had his Sunday chores to look forward to and the show at the festival in conjunction Halloween, both the next weekend, but not much in between. He didn't bother changing his clothes today, just pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it into the laundry, before beginning his chores.

His muscles ached by the time he sat down for dinner; lifting his fork to his mouth took a concentrated amount of effort. He had fended off thoughts of Skwisgaar and Fuckface Academy and fun and everything good in the world with the mind-numbing physicality of the work, but in the silence at dinner he began to stew. The inability to focus from the morning came back full force. He attempted to drink the salad dressing and garnered looks from his parents and this bought him back some, but not fully. He swirled lettuce on his plate and thought about the concert, about the band, about sitting in a circle with his friends and Skwisgaar afterwards, about the way Skwisgaar had invited him to the festival, _only _him. It was a thing to boast about, being personally invited out by the great up-and-coming guitarist of the twenty-first century. If Skwisgaar never improved past the way he had played last night than he'd be one of the best guitarists to ever walk the earth; if he managed to somehow exceed the skill he demonstrated, he could easily be _the _best, hands down. For some reason Toki felt proud of this; he wanted to show Skwisgaar off. He had no reason to feel this way, since he wasn't actually in possession (in any sense of the word) of Skwisgaar, but sometimes Toki felt strange things like that.

Throughout the remainder of the day all he could think of was Skwisgaar. In the shower he mulled over their conversation, narrowing in on specific things Skwisgaar had said. The condescending way he said "ja" and the way it stood in contrast with his utterly deplorable English made Toki smile. The fact that he'd done something as—well, as fucking cool as just buying plane tickets and ending up in a stupid town in Florida stunned Toki. Not to mention that he was another born-and-raised Scandinavian and not some guy who claimed to be an eighth Norwegian on his mother's side; he was an actual brother to Toki's mother tongue. Toki recalled in the shower, his fingers in his hair (where'd they been for five minutes as he lost himself in thought), the way Skwisgaar had leaned forward when he invited Toki to the show, or leaned into the conversation in general. Skwisgaar had a way of filling the air with his presence; like Toki would literally inhale him and Skwisgaar would enter his bloodstream, travelling through his body with every beat of Toki's heart. It was suffocating, but in the most pleasant of ways, being somewhere with Skwisgaar. Toki was sort of hard by the time he exited the shower but he chose to ignore that. He toweled off in the steam of the bathroom and walked back to his room naked, feeling a little daring, a little buzzed.

Time chugged on in a completely normal fashion, mind-blowingly enough. Monday was effortless and boring and Toki found himself becoming gradually aware that his friends kept making the same jokes, that he kept doing roughly the same work in his classes, that everything felt the same. He felt flighty and off, his brain in another physical location than his body, his vision tinged by memories. He took up the habit of staring without seeing, eyes unfocused, as he gave great thought to Saturday, Skwisgaar, and his situation.

He mulled his situation over in Chemistry, nearly blowing Rockzo and him up when he added the wrong chemical to a mixture they'd been working on. He mulled it over in English, responding half a minute later after Murderface would speak to him while simultaneously failing to take notes on the differences between allegories and allusions. He mulled it over in 3D Art, fucking up the new sculpture they were supposed to be starting on five times. He mulled it over in Algebra II, staring at the back of Pickles's head as formulas slid through his ears. He mulled it over at lunch, staring into the depths of the cafeteria and ignoring the conversation at the table. He mulled it over in German, failing a test when he slipped into Norwegian halfway through. He mulled it over in World History, though he snapped into attention when the teacher started talking about Scandinavia, just for his thoughts to return to the weekend. He mulled it over in Home Ec and burned the brownies he was supposed to be making. He nearly fell down the stairs walking out, and then tripped up into Nathan's truck, his face slamming into the seat. His friends laughed their asses off, and Toki chuckled but faltered fast.

He'd felt this way before, only once, as a young boy in Norway. There had been a girl who attended his father's church, older and taller but petite for her age, with the most perfect set of blonde ringlets. She'd had a pretty mouth, naturally red bow shaped lips, and Toki would stare at her while she sang. He'd been nine, she fourteen, and he had been in love, mesmerized, transfixed by her presence. They had never spoken and the feelings had never escaped the boyish childhood crush—but now they had returned, in the presence of Skwisgaar, another boy. He recognized the flutter in his innards just from thinking about something the person said or did. He remembered a similar overanalysis of everything single move (but the goddamn eyebrow had to mean _something_.) He recalled the devastating desire to even be _near _the person again, coupled with an inane fear of fucking up. And this, this was what he surmised from his mulling.

Toki, of course, _knew _about the concept of homosexuality. He knew the sinful side well—his father, a wholly religious man, actively advocated against it. His father had never lectured him against it personally, but his father never lectured him against anything, so Toki was left to make up his own opinions since he certainly didn't buy the church's Adam and Eve traditional marriage man shall not lay with other man bullshit. Toki considered himself a generally open-minded person and tried to accept everybody the way they were, but he hadn't known a gay person until—until, well, now, if he was about to count himself. Which he wasn't. He didn't know; it didn't matter, since Skwisgaar was unlikely to return these affections, but all Toki could think about throughout the day was perhaps that he was, indeed, forming some sort of romantic feelings for Skwisgaar Skwigelf, another male. The idea consumed him, started in his chest and blossomed outwards, wrapped around him and bogged him down. He was slow in his Monday chores, receiving a whip across the back for the first time in a long time.

That night Toki lay in bed at the crisp time of eight o'clock, on his stomach, his back stinging from the recent lashing. Eyes drooping and shifting in and out of consciousness only to be jerked back from a pain in his back, he thought more of his situation. He could not hide nor repress himself; that would be a terrible way to go about living. He simply _had_ to tell another person of his predicament, receive advice. He was afraid of going to the festival on Saturday and making a fool of himself, and he would also like to stop feeling this way about Skwisgaar. He figured out that it was not about him being gay, or wanting dick, or anything stupid like that—it was that Skwisgaar was probably not gay and did not want dick. Or maybe he was. Maybe he was a fuck-anything-that-moves type of person, not just a lecherous straight guy—and these thoughts were precisely why Toki needed to talk to somebody else. He was going a little insane, leaping from _hey, what a cool guy_ to _if only Florida would legalize gay marriage and maybe also marijuana_, and this was just from two days of being locked up with his own thoughts.

Thus on Tuesday morning he tapped Pickle on the shoulder in Chemistry. Pickles turned around, eyes fully open and lacking redness (indicating that he didn't wake and bake that morning, which Toki was glad for) and titled his head. "What?" He asked, the flat whine of his voice almost causing Toki to wince. It was too early in the morning for that whiny Wisconsin grate.

"I need to speak with you," Toki said. He looked to his side; Rockzo had not yet appeared that morning, the class was half-full and Nathan was sleeping on his arms. "Soon," he added, "but not here."

"Okay," Pickles said, screwing up his face at Toki and drawing out the word. He turned back around and dropped his head to his own arms, joining Nathan. Toki watched Pickles's foot slowly move closer to Nathan's under the table until Rockzo filled the seat next to Toki with his obscene existence and his Tuesday officially began.

They were doing yet another lab today, Mr. Marshall being a fan of anything that got him out of teaching, one that required clean-up at the sinks. Rockzo was extremely messy and careless in his labs, leaving Toki to fix everything and clean up while Rockzo flitted away to talk to the girl with the periwinkle puffballs and her gaggle of similarly clownish friends. Nathan didn't do shit when they were in a lab either, just informed Pickles to "keep the crap away" from him and dropped his head back down to his arms. On any other day Toki would've been annoyed; today, he was thanking the gods. Toki and Pickles finished their data collection at roughly the same time and met up at the sinks, Pickles scrubbing the tray with a dreadlock in his face and eyebrows furrowed, Toki waiting behind him. Toki looked over Pickles's shoulder at the task he was doing to occupy his eyes, though his mind was elsewhere, as was the trend in the week.

"What was it that you needed to talk to me about?" Pickles asked. The materials they had been working with today were gooey and sticky and Pickles was really putting all of his weight into the scrubbing effort, his body heaving. He let out small grunts at particularly tough patches. Toki normally would've been shaking with laughter, but it wasn't a normal week.

"What's it called when you have more-than-friends feelings for other people?" Toki asked. His voice raised a few octaves in pitch and he looked away from Pickles, heart stammering, face growing hot. "Liking?" He hadn't actually forgotten the terminology, but he liked it when he could use his being foreign excuse to get out of or ease into difficult situations. He was considering playing that particular card to his German teacher and retaking the test he'd failed, since it really bogged his grade down.

"I 'spose so," Pickles said, grunting again. He jumped a bit, force actually lifting his feet from the ground. Toki couldn't help but smirk. "Goddamn, what is this stuff _made _of?"

"That's what we're supposed to be finding out, I think. Um, anyway, Pickle, I think I—like somebody." Toki immediately rammed his chin into his chest and shut his eyes, fists curling. Something in his body lunged forward, kind of like he was about to throw up but without the actual throwing up part.

Pickles stopped trying to scrub the mystery substance from the tray, dropping it into the sink with a loud, tinny ringing noise. He sent a sheepish smile off in the direction of the teacher and then turned to Toki, who had now cracked his eyes open and was looking in Pickles's direction. Pickles eyes were wide, a grin growing on his lips. "What's that I heard? You actually _like somebody_? Who is she?" Pickles clapped a hand on Toki's back and jumped, this time on his accord.

"Um—" Toki began, but it appeared that Pickles was not yet finished talking. Toki looked down at the floor, wincing with pain as Pickles twisted his hand on Toki's back. Pickles's palm and Toki's wound from his most recent lashing met up at the same place near his shoulder blade, and every time Pickles caused more friction, Toki would try not to cry. He'd almost forgotten the severity of a lashing gash.

"Is it Emmy?" Pickles asked, rubbing his hand against Toki's back once more. Toki fought every urge of crying and crying out he had, keeping his body still. "It's Emmy, isn't it?" Pickles jumped again and looked off in the direction of Emmy. Toki did as well, as he'd actually forgotten who Emmy was.

Emmy was the girl with the periwinkle puffballs, though today she was wearing her hair down and straightened. She was talking to Rockzo, leaning on her lab table while her lab partner actually did what they were supposed to. Emmy too was decked in clown clothes, platform boots and some sort of rainbow lolita skirt monstrosity that must've cost forty dollars at the local Hot Topic with a shirt that exposed her naval in her relaxed position, and Toki twitched. He could not figure out why Pickles would think he liked Emmy. He'd maybe spoken to her once, asking for his pencil back when it had managed to catapult near her desk in one of his classes during ninth grade. It had been an awkward and embarrassing experience for both parties involved, he felt. Even with his limited knowledge of anything romantic, Toki could see that they would clearly not make a good couple. Emmy sort of frightened him.

"Ah, man." Pickles still hadn't shut up. "This is great." His smile split in his face evenly in two, his eyebrows manically curved, piercings catching the fluorescent lights. In that moment, Pickles sort of frightened him too.

Toki swallowed the lump in his throat and started to form a plan for directing Pickles away from the ridiculous Emmy thing, and more towards the correct, albeit still slightly ridiculous, Skwisgaar thing. "Why would you think I like her?" Toki asked, tilting his head.

He meant it incredulously and innocently, the wording designed to tell Pickles that he was wrong without actually telling Pickles that he was wrong, but Pickles didn't interpret it like that. "You're always staring at her," he said, nodding his head furiously. "I was just talkin' to Nathan about this, too," he continued, flicking a dread over his shoulder and crossing his arms. He bobbed his head once more, fierce and swift, his final judgment made.

"Well—" Toki began to speak with the intention of correcting Pickles, but once more it seemed that Pickles himself was not done speaking. Toki sighed deep as Pickles's voice crashed into his eardrums.

"Now I just _gotta _hook you two lovebirds up," Pickles said, grinning in a way that exposed his canines and made him much more threatening. "She's totally gonna fuck you, dood."

Pickles's lechery was actually starting to make Toki feel a little sick to his stomach. He sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. Pickles _seriously _wasn't getting this. "You're _really_ not getting it," Toki said,

"Do you not wanna fuck her?" Pickles asked, tilting his head and making a face at Toki like Toki had denied the sky was blue. "That's a little gay, dood." He took his hand from Toki's back, trying to be casual about it.

Toki sighed for the third time, unable to think of something to say next. He had lost all motivation to confess about his sexuality crisis re: Skwisgaar Skwigelf somewhere after Pickles suggested that Toki liked Emmy, and felt exhausted from the train wreck of a conversation. He prickled with stress and discomfiture. Thus, he said "Pickle, I need to clean up my lab," gesturing to the equipment that he had placed on the counter adjacent to the sink before beginning his conversation.

Pickles nodded. "We'll talk more later," he said, and then he was off, walking with a spring in his step while he carried his lab equipment to its proper place in the classroom. Toki couldn't tell if Pickles was happy because of Toki, or if he was just being whimsical in general, but he enjoyed watching his friend behave vaguely like a leprechaun.

Toki had a far easier time scrubbing the tray clean of the sticky residue than Pickles, though whether that was due to his superior strength or domestic prowess he couldn't tell. He dawdled at the sink, relishing the three minutes of being alone and reluctant to thrust himself back into the world of overcomplicated social interactions. He had flipped the tray over three times, water gliding down the metal and bouncing colorful little specks of light off in the most delightful of fashion, and scrubbed the inside of the test tubes two times before a girl tapped him on the shoulder and informed him of her need to use the sink. Toki blustered and moved out of the way, face heating up with embarrassment, and hurried to deposit his immaculate lab equipment. He returned to his desk in welcome solitude—Pickles and Nathan were discussing something with their heads huddled together and turned away from Toki and Rockzo was still chatting Emmy up—and stared at the data he was supposed to be processing, weighing the pros and cons of actually processing it. For lack of anything better to do, he started to construct a clean and neat data table, plugging numbers into columns before plugging numbers into equations.

Pickles rotated his chair around to face Toki at an angle, arms folded on top of the back and head resting on top of them, face maniacal. "So Nathan and me were talkin'," he began, curling his lip, "and we thought we could probably get you a date with Emmy this weekend." Nathan grunted in agreement from the pile he had made himself into, head down on the desk.

Toki put aside his calculator and the paper he'd been doing his calculations on and looked at Pickles, fighting the urge to sigh yet again. This whole thing was exhausting. "Pickle, I—" He struggled for a few seconds to think of a way to end that sentence. Pickle, I…_don't want to date Emmy? _Pickle, I…_really wish you would stop trying to hook me up with a girl I don't want?_ Pickle, I…_don't even want a girl? _Pickle, I…_want to discuss something very different with you…_ Pickle, I…_think I'm in love with the lead guitarist of Attending Fuckface Academy. _Pickle, I…_promised Skwisgaar I'd go to his show on Saturday. _"Pickle, I promised Skwisgaar I'd go to his show on Saturday?"

"Skwisgaar? So we're on a first name basis now, eh? Okay, but that's Saturday night, what 'bout Friday evening?" Pickles looked towards Nathan as if for validation, but Nathan couldn't be less interested in the conversation. Pickles looked back at Toki, expecting a response.

"My parents wouldn't let me do that," Toki said, and for the first time in his life, he was grateful for his parents' ridiculous rules. He gave a pathetic little shrug of the shoulders and a wiggle of the eyebrows to indicate that he was just _so saddened _by this.

Pickles slapped his own arm. "Damn, forgot about 'em douchebags," Pickles said. "This is gonna be harder than I thought." He swiveled back around and pulled out his phone to text somebody; Toki felt relieved. He wondered if he was good at lying and if Pickles was good enough at reading people to pick up on Toki's blatantly obvious fabrications. He came to an uneasy decision that while he was shit at lying, Pickles wasn't that astute at social cues, and maybe—just _maybe_—he could scrape by until Saturday without having to interact with Emmy. Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully.

Pickles continued to hound Toki for the next two days about dating Emmy. He collected a variety of information about her for Toki: she had a cup size of 32D, wore a size 4 in jeans, lost her virginity at the age of fourteen, and had a really good drug dealer. She _loved _guitarists, men with long hair and glam metal. Her favorite color was neon. Her ideal date had to involve ice-skating, a five-star restaurant and shooting heroin or dropping acid in a back alley somewhere, though she didn't care about the order. Toki figured Pickles must have connections in Rockzo's weirdo group of friends to be learning all of this, despite his proclaimed hatred for the clique. Clownish children began to stare at Toki in the hall and whisper among themselves as he passed, and he _knew _they were talking about his apparently _colossal crush _on Emmy, and there was nothing he could do to counteract the rumor. His face heated every time he heard his name mashed with Emmy's, a mantra of _Toki and Emmy Toki and Emmy Toki and Emmy _following him everywhere he went. It surprised him that Emmy had not yet approached him, and though he was glad of that fact, he lived his life in fear of the moment when she would.

The Emmy predicament had one upside, and one upside only—it made him appreciate Skwisgaar and his newfound sexuality much, much more. The idea of being in a relationship with that girl—and that was a guarantee, as Pickles had assured him again and again that Emmy was a slut and Toki was good-looking enough to make it work—scared him, even grossed him out on some levels. Toki didn't know much about females, the only ones he came into contact with on a regular basis being his mother, the women of his church, and Abigail. He didn't care to associate with them, though it was no fault of their own. Toki clicked better with guys. How he hadn't figured out that he would click better with another boy on a romantic level earlier befuddled him, because once that slid into place in his mind it just made so much _sense. _And the boy he wanted to click with shredded guitar, hailed from Sweden, and had taken an interest in him. If he removed Emmy from his life at the moment, his life at the moment was not all that bad. Every time Pickles confronted him with a new Emmy factoid—she smells like strawberries, she could fit her fist in her mouth—Toki would comfort himself with the fact that Fuckface Academy's second show was just days away, his chance to see Skwisgaar for the second time lurking at the end of the week.

He could not live in this blissful limbo for long, and thus his dilemma came to a head at lunch on Thursday. He sat with his assembled group at the table, Pickles eating a churro he'd bought from Taco Bell before school, Nathan on his second slice of leftover Papa John's he'd brought to school, and Murderface slurping back school spinach. Toki pecked at a granola bar—raisin again, what the fuck—and looked off in the distance, his mind occupied with forming a fantasy about the way Saturday would go down. He'd become accustomed to lunch periods fashioned similar to this, fantasizing about Skwisgaar intercut with Pickles's insinuations about Emmy.

"Hey, Toki," Murderface said, leaning over and prodding Toki in the shoulder with the end of his plastic spoon to get his attention. He interrupted Toki's version of Toki and Skwisgaar just as they were about to embark on one of those horse-drawn carriage rides they offered downtown. "Let'sch go to the schkate park after schscool today."

Pickles practically leaped out of his seat, his churro falling from his hands to the table. Toki grew annoyed; horse-drawn carriages were expensive. "I gahtta idea!" Pickles screeched, slamming his hands on the table. "Don't go to skate park."

"But I _like _the skate park," Toki said, setting his granola bar down on the table. He figured he was about to face a barrage of Emmy-related pestering from Pickles. "Why wouldn't I go with Murderface?"

"It didn't occur to me that he could go out with Emmy _after school_," Pickles said as he settled back into his seat, addressing Nathan, palms flat on the table with his elbows at an odd angle. Nathan did his best to look interested, but he seemed more preoccupied with making love to the third piece of pizza with his mouth. "I mean, yeah, it's kinda lame, but that's our Toki." Pickles grinned at Toki like he meant it affectionately. Toki did not find it affectionate.

"No way," Murderface said, and Toki found himself thankful of Murderface like he'd been thankful of most of his life's non-Emmy annoyances lately. "I'm meeting up with Dick today at the schkate park. If the copsch buscht usch, I need schomebody to take the blame."

Toki beamed with gratitude, hoping the drug deal proposal would placate Pickles. It did not; Pickles continued to talk and Toki's beaming lessened with every syllable. Nervousness began to creep into him—Pickles was serious. "Why the fuck do you have to meet up with Dick at the _skate park_? Don't you see the douchebag, like, every day?"

"Not every day," Murderface mumbled. He took a bite of his sandwich and turned away from Pickles and the rest of the table, crossing his arms over his chest and exhaling severely. "Never mind, then."

Pickles ignored Murderface and sent more enthusiasm Toki's way. "C'mon, dude! You could probably fit in ice-skating or some alley action, make her happy, she fucks you, or at least blows you, all is good. I could arrange it for today! Isn't this great, Nathan?" He nudged Nathan in the side. Nathan grunted, still more interested in the pizza.

"Pickle, can you come to the bathroom with me please?" Toki said, his beam completely dissipated and replaced by a horrid sense of nerves. He spoke with a grave expression, even pitch and tone and eyes locked onto Pickles's. He felt marginally proud of himself for being able to stifle the rising hysteria he'd been feeling all week and the nerves threatening to collapse in upon themselves long enough to ask the question.

"Uh, what? You need help pissin'?" Pickles asked, raising his eyebrows. Nathan chuckled, and Murderface let a hissy sliver of laughter through tightly closed lips, but Toki remained emotionless and expressionless. Inwardly he felt like the inside of a rainmaker as somebody rotated it up and down. Pickles's face fell, and then rearranged itself into a signpost of understanding. "Oh, okay," he said, getting up from the table. Toki did so also, leaning back and stretching. His back didn't hurt form the lashing anymore, the gash scabbed over and definitely going to scar.

They did not go to the bathroom, but just outside the cafeteria, where Toki could isolate Pickles and explain the situation to him. Toki was nervous, but he swallowed down a bundle of bile and jittery worries, looking around to ensure the hallway was clear. It was; Toki placed his hands on Pickles's shoulders. This was important, necessary, his life was hinging on it, and he earnestly believed this. He curled his fingers deep into Pickles's shoulders, and Pickles opened his mouth to say something, clearly befuddled.

"I don't like Emmy," Toki said, before Pickles could start talking and not leave room for Toki to voice his own opinion, which had been happening a lot recently. Toki's fingers twitched but he kept them on Pickles's shoulders, staring deep into his eyes, feeling like the fate of the world was resting on him making this conversation go flawlessly.

"What?" Pickles said, eyes widening, jaw dropping open. "You don't?"

"No," Toki said. He removed his hands from Pickles's shoulders slowly, resting his arms straight by his sides. He did not break eye contact with Pickles and retained the same serious expression. Pickles seemed to grow increasingly confused, opening and closing his mouth before deciding on what to say, and reaching into his front pocket like he wanted to get his cigarettes out. Instead he pulled his phone out and lit the screen up without looking at it before sliding it back into the depths of his jeans.

"But you told me you liked somebody," Pickles said. He did not seem hurt, merely baffled, and Toki did not feel bad. No, the sense of urgency gripped him as tightly as he had gripped Pickles, somebody else's hands coiling around his shoulders.

"Yes," Toki said, crossing his arms and nodding and his head. "I does—do. I do." He flushed at the grammar mistake, losing his composure for the first time and knowing that a dam had been broken. He knew Pickles didn't give a fuck about that, but Toki had been finding himself slipping into Norwegian or butchering English with more frequency lately. He hoped the others didn't notice it, though he figured they didn't give a fuck, either. Still, he remained rather self-conscious about his speech, and it triggered emotions to come crashing back down into his body. He was weak, incapable of defending them apart from the stony masquerade he'd constructed, and now without that, he felt at danger to melt and slip away before finishing this goddamn confession.

"Then who is it?" Pickles tilted his head and scrunched his face up at Toki. "If it's Abigail—"

"It's not Abigail." Toki shifted weight from one foot to another, crossed his arms and sighed—he'd been doing a lot of sighing recently, as well. Urgency and nerves and everything he'd been feeling over the weak was swelling inside of him, reaching a peak, and it was frightening and dangerous and if Toki was a nuclear power plant there was about to be a meltdown.

"Stop bullshitting me," Pickles said. "You've got me all curious, 'n' if it's not Emmy, and if it's not Abigail, then I really can't think of anybody else."

"It's Skwisgaar," Toki blurted out. Then he died, or at least he felt like he died, as his heart crawled out of his mouth and his stomach dropped to his feet. He inhaled sharply and bought his hand to cover his mouth, trying to force the words to go back inside and failing, as he reddened and began to regret his decision to tell Pickles immediately. He cast his head down in shame and squeezed his eyes shut. He saw fireworks on his eyelids, orange and yellow and blue and green explosions against the black backdrop, and kept squeezing his eyes shut harder to coax more into appearing. They calmed him, distracted him, and he was able to slip into a sort of enlightenment where he wasn't freaking out about what he had just done.

There was silence for a little while, but no sound of footsteps. Toki kept his eye shut and listened to Pickles's breathing. Pickles breathed normally, no signs of upset there. Toki dared to crack his eyes open after some awkward seconds that felt like decades and stared down at Pickles's feet, at his blue and black old school Adidas, treasured and worn, his pants rolling down onto the dirtied laces, basically an extension of Pickles's personality. Toki noticed, desperate to think about anything else, that Pickles had unusually small feet for a guy.

"You're gay," Pickles said, absent of any particular infliction. Toki looked up to establish eye contact with Pickles, though not in the strong, determined way of earlier but in a meek, concerned manner. Pickles's face was also void of expression, which worried Toki, until Pickles followed up his previous statement with "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"You're not mad?" Toki asked, squeaking the words out. He was utterly and thoroughly mortified, as the implications of what had just happened came raining down on him. He'd just come out for the first time, he'd confessed to actually having feelings for somebody, he'd dug himself a hole and kept going deeper and deeper into the pit of the earth. He _wished _he could just fall through the concrete and down into the pits of hell and escape this life already.

"Why would I be mad? I just wish you'd told me earlier, would've saved me a fuckload of work this week," Pickles said. He was relaxed, like he was having a conversation about the weather, and this relaxation rubbed off on Toki and eased him once more into a state of enlightenment, where he didn't have to worry. He was embarrassed, but the uncomfortable flood of emotions he'd felt was receding. He felt sort of peaceful, actually.

"Well, um, yeah," Toki said, and he laughed a little, nervous and jittery.

"I mean, it really just explains why you've been so obsessed with Fuckface Academy," Pickles mused, scratching at his chin. He'd been trying to grow in a goatee lately; it looked like shit, but nobody wanted to tell him. His face split into another one of those scary smiles. "It's 'cause you're obsessed with _Skwisgaar._"

Toki ignored those particular comments and instead said, "So, um, nothing's weird between us?" He rubbed and patted his thighs, void of things to with his hands, and felt weak with relief as opposed to nerves and negativity for once.

"Nah," Pickles said, waving his hand. "I don't really care 'bout what you wanna fuck, tell you the truth."

Toki exhaled in relief and enveloped Pickles in a hug. "Thanks, Pickle," he said, and he meant it, oh how he meant it. Pickles might have Nathan, and Toki was expected to have Murderface in a similar manner, but Murderface had Dick. Regardless, Toki loved his friends deeply, even if they didn't love him quite that deeply back, and on a normal day he was so incredibly thankful of them. Today, Toki was prepared to construct a temple for Pickles and immortalize him as the god of friendship and advice. He felt Pickles may object to that though, and settled for crushing Pickles inside his arms. Pickles was short but not completely skinny, just the slightest bit of chub to him that you couldn't even tell until you hugged him.

Pickles actually hugged back, patting Toki on the back, but he broke the embrace quickly. "No problem, dood. Don't know what you're thanking me for, but, uh, no problem." He pulled out his phone and checked the time. "We should probably be headin' back in now." he said.

"Just—don't tell the other guys. Not yet." Toki looked around to make sure the conversation wasn't overheard, but the hall outside the cafeteria was empty, the nearest person buying something at a vending machine out of earshot.

"'Kay," Pickles said, and they walked back to the cafeteria. The conversation made Toki nervous, and when Toki felt nervous he got very hot and uncomfortable, but he was no longer sweating or on the verge of collapsing. He was cleansed, his problems evaporating like the sweat on his back, and he began to grow optimistic about the future. He took his seat opposite Nathan, Pickles and Murderface, picked up his granola bar and resumed eating it, though he didn't taste it, not really. Euphoria festered inside the pit of his stomach, started to bubble up, and warmed his insides in a pleasant way. He let himself believe that everything was going to be okay, that Skwisgaar was going to love him back, that the other guys would accept that, and that he was going to reach a nirvana of teenage hood that he had previously thought impossible. He let himself believe, if only for this lunch period, that his life was beginning to look up.

"What took you guysch scho long in the bathroom?" Murderface asked, having spun his body back around into the conversation, mood swing over.

"Long line," Pickles said, waving his hand like he'd done to Toki earlier. Pickles turned towards Nathan. "Did y'hear the new Cymoid Sample song? So, so brutal." They began their own conversation, independent of all else, and Toki didn't even feel envious.

Instead, Toki looked at Murderface and said, "Sure, I'll go to the skate park with you."

"Good, 'causche Dick schaid he hasch schome fantaschtic jolly green." Murderface ate the last of his food and pushed the tray away, reclining as far back as the backless chair would allow. He started playing with his unused plastic knife until it bended into an unusable form and snapped.

"Jolly green?" Toki asked. He thought it might be weed, but he'd never heard the term before.

"Kusch. Atschitschi. Dagga. Mary Jew Anna." Murderface continued to shell out obscure names for marijuana, and Toki let him, not really caring and chewing his granola bar as he watched Murderface count off the slang on his fingers. He got to thirty-two before Pickles barked at him to _shut the fuck up, mother douchebag _and Murderface sneered back, but quieted.

Pickles went home with Nathan after school while Toki and Murderface did their usual skatepark routine. Toki met Murderface at his locker, accepted the cheap piece of shit board, and skated just a step ahead of Murderface. Murderface's select topic to tirade against today was, of all things, the girls that sat in front of them in English. "You think I'm a nische, don't ya, Toki?" He asked, running a hand over his hair. He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders like he couldn't imagine anybody disagreeing with him.

Toki didn't respond, just glided on the sidewalk, shirt and hair billowing behind him. He loved this. He loved the world. He couldn't be bothered with Murderface's shit; he was too happy. He'd also manage to scrape up enough money for the horse-drawn carriage again, a month later, and he and Skwisgaar were laughing at some old lady who fell down on the street and spilled her groceries across the cobblestone.

"Well, I think I am, and that'sch all that mattersch," Murderface said, stepping up his pace to match Toki's and visibly straining from the effort. "All I aschked wasch to schee her titsch, sche didn't have to schlap me. And her friend didn't have to beat me up. What bitchesch."

"Girls suck," Toki said, smirking a bit to himself. "Even the nice ones are bitches."

"I know!" Murderface thrust his arms towards the sky, falling behind Toki, and Toki laughed. Murderface laughed also.

Toki didn't quite believe that all women were bitches, partly because he didn't know enough women to make a judgment, and even then the women he knew weren't truly bitches. His mother was barely a person, the ladies at his church were fake and obnoxious but not _bitches, _and Abigail may be strict and professional but she wasn't unjust or ridiculous. But it was fun to be facetious and feed into Murderface's ranting, and Toki was in the mood for fun. He did not feel this way often, but when he did, he relished in it, exaggerated in it. The sun beat down on him, the unusual heat for October bathing him in comfortable warmth, and the lazy breeze accelerated by his own acceleration pushed his hair out of his face. He felt loved and cherished and good and young and _fun, _so much _fun, _the smirk did not leave his face the whole way to the skatepark as it slipped into an actual smile.

Murderface met up with Dick, exchanged money for a bag of suspicious green curdles, then hung out with him, smoking some jolly green and pushing each other back and forth. Toki took to the actual skatepark part, doing the pipes and the handrails like always. The park was congested today and he collided with a young kid, no older than nine, who fell to the concrete, skidded, and scraped his knee up badly. Toki wish he cared but he didn't, just rolled onwards, picking his momentum back up and turning to go into a bowl. He did the only trick he knew how at the opposite side, lifting his board above and grabbing the back with his hand before letting it slam down again, then crisscrossed across for the remainder of his time at the skatepark, which was a short-lived visit. Murderface called Toki's name and Toki skated out of the park to the fence, picked up the board and tucked it under his arm. He followed Murderface and Dick down the street to a nearby parking lot for a Finntroll.

Toki and Murderface did not take the bus home today, but rode with Dick. Dick drove a modest car, jet black with ridiculously nice speakers and broken heating. The uncommon hotness made the broken heating irrelevant and Dick blasted some weird Scandinavian techno music on the way home that Murderface bitched about endlessly, with Dick reassuring him that these guys were _totally genius _and _revolutionary _and other flattering, overused musical jargon, that Toki actually found sort of genius and maybe a little revolutionary. Murderface rode passenger, Toki in the back behind him, looking out the window. Toki actually liked the boring landscape of suburban Florida, found it a comfort, and he'd been feeling pretty comfortable that day. He bid goodbye to Dick and Murderface when Dick screeched to a halt in front of Toki's house, though neither of them said goodbye back, and walked up the pathway to his front door. He laughed to himself imagining Dick and Murderface squabbling about the Scandinavian techno music, and it wasn't even that funny.

He cleaned the bathrooms and the kitchen, cut the branches of the tree in the backyard and tended to his garden all without any major failure, ensuring that he would have a pleasant, gentle evening as well. The garden yielded heavy, robust vegetables with smooth skins that felt pleasant in his hands, and though he usually enjoyed the garden, today he felt ecstatic to crouch amongst the earth and look for bad bugs among the good. He realized that he had neglected to inform his parents of his desire to be out again this weekend, and decided on doing so at dinner, hoping his perfect performance in his chores this day (and since the lashing) would earn him some leverage. He took a shower before dinner, his mother cooking in the kitchen and his father still not home, and even thought about touching himself. He didn't do that often, having little to no privacy at home or anywhere else and eventually decided against it when he realized he'd been in the shower for a while already. Suspicion would not play into his plans of leaving the house this Friday. He exited the shower and toweled off, somewhat pleased with the way he'd been bulking up lately. Hard labor made a hard body, even if it was a scarred mess of a body, it was still his own.

He dressed nicely for dinner, knowing his parents preferred it that way and even tied his hair back at the nape of his neck. He sat up straight at the table, a model son with proper manners, and didn't put his elbows on the table once. He didn't think his parents noticed.

"Far, Mar," he began when they neared the end of their meal, "I would like permission to go out again this weekend." He spoke the last part in Norwegian as well; he'd never spoken English in the presence of his father, he didn't think. He swallowed back a ball of nerves and continued on. "I'll ask Nathan to ask his mother to call you," he said to his mother. He did not address his father directly.

His mother nodded and his father said nothing, which could be a good or a bad sign; Toki really didn't know. As a bonus he cleared the table himself, rolled his sleeves up and washed the dishes, elbow-deep in bubbles and hope. He even did his homework at the kitchen table in full view of his parents when they passed through. His parents didn't care about school, more about chores and tasks and church and piles of firewood, but he personally saw no reason to not do his homework. The night was young, the sun having just recently dipped below the horizon, and he did not feel too tired. He felt good. Invigorated. His math homework looked like a foreign language and the book he was supposed to be reading for English bored him out of his mind, but he translated the passage for German pretty well, and felt fulfilled from the experience overall.

At some point, while he was trying to figure out what schmetterling meant without looking in his book, his mother walked by and touched him on the shoulder. She looked at him and nodded, and Toki understood this to mean that, yes, he could go out with his friends again. He stopped himself from leaping up and hugging his mother, honestly shocked that he possessed such an urge. It clicked in his brain that schmetterling was the wood for butterfly and he scribbled out the rest of the passage, a quaint story about spring in Germany, then rushed into his room and smiled into his pillow.

He arranged the finer details of their weekend plans with Murderface, Nathan and Pickles at lunch the next day, including for Halloween, which they had collectively forgotten was that Sunday in the hysteria of the Emmy fiasco. Nathan would pick Toki up in time for the show; they would head to the festival; Toki would spend the night yet again at Nathan's; they would trick-or-treat ("because candy, that's why, fucker" as Nathan so eloquently put it) and Toki would be returned to his parents that night. To Toki, this meant that he would not be attending church for the second week in a row, and that there were actually things in his life to look forward to, and that he would be seeing Skwisgaar Skwigelf in a little over twenty-four hours, and he had a weekend of enjoyable activities to look forward to. Pickles winked at Toki while the group touched upon the show, and Toki just stuck his tongue out back, feeling young and feeling right.


	5. Gray Skies, Blue Eyes

Yes hi hello I suck at updating but that is nothing new. This is the last day of my spring break so um don't expect another update until summer break, sorry guys! I'm trying though, and look, an update! I haven't forgotten or given up on this story yet. I'm fond of this chapter and I just marathonned writing 10k words of it since late last night so I am very frazzled. I have a lot of things to say about this chapter, actually, but none of them are that important. I hope you enjoy it, though!

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"I'm schweating ballsch out here."

Nathan, Pickles and Toki sent a collective glare at Murderface; Dick sighed and tipped his head back. It _was _hot, milling about an uninteresting October festival at three in the afternoon, but if Murderface complained one more _goddamned _time, Toki was possibly going to _murder_ his _face_. Murderface was wearing that leather jacket again, along with jeans and combat boots, while the rest were clad in shorts and t-shirts. Dick had suggested that if Murderface dress more appropriately he might not suffer in life as much, which caused Murderface to actively ignore him, and now a sort of tension buzzed between them that the other guys felt awkward being around. But, Toki thought as they approached a cart selling drinks, there was nowhere else he'd rather be.

Pickles bought a bottle of water for Toki and Toki held it to his head, closing his eyes and moaning at the cold. He was sensitive to heat-induced headaches and suffered one now, dull pain throbbing orange behind his eyelids. He opened his eyes and hurried to catch up when he heard footsteps. The five of them walked over to an area with benches occupied by young mothers with young children and filled two benches between the five of them, Toki wedged in with Pickles and Dick. They'd arrived just ten minutes ago, figuring that since it was a festival there'd surely be something to do to occupy them for an hour before Fuckface Academy came on. They were wrong; the festival sucked balls and mostly showcased American consumerism, the band currently playing sucked balls, the weather sucked balls, everything sucked balls. Toki, despite the buzzing, anticipatory experiencing he'd been housing for days, had to agree that this was probably not the best time he'd ever have in his life. He still felt pretty happy and bouncy with anticipation, though.

"Scheriouschly, guysch," Murderface said, extending his legs and stretching his arms far above his head, "it'sch fucking hot." Murderface sat with Nathan on the bench beside Toki's, and between the two of them nobody else could've fit. Nathan's size consisted of muscle, Murderface's of fat and leather malodorous with sweat. He had horrible pit stains crawling down his sides, almost to the hem of his pants, and Toki could only imagine the stench he emitted.

"We _know _that, sweetheart," Dick snipped. He covered his eyes with his left hand and looked off to the side, right hand gripping his elbow. "You've told us. Several times." He had his hair pulled back in a tight, shiny ponytail, sunglasses on his head like he was trying to appear as a hotshot producer, and Pickles had laughed about it to Nathan when Dick had come through the gates to meet them.

"The fuck are we gonna do for an _hour_?" Nathan said, punctuating the question with a long, cheast-heaving groan. "There's nothing _to_ do."

"We could walk somewhere and come back," Pickles suggested. "There's a gelato—" but he was unable to finish his sentence, as everybody began laughing at the way he said _gelato. _Pickles crossed his arms. The novelty of his accent hadn't worn off with age and though everyday words lost their appeal, this was perhaps the first time Toki had heard Pickles say gelato, and holy shit did he say it weirdly, a flat _a _and a long _o _in that whiny pitch. Toki had to admit it was pretty funny and snorted (rather discreetly, he thought) himself.

But because Pickles seemed sort of upset, Toki scrounged for something to say in Norwegian, because the guys thought the language sounded hilarious. It kind of did, but Toki felt that it had an underlying beauty to it that he didn't care if the other guys didn't see. "Jada, la oss få noe kaldt," he said, exaggerating his own accent quite a bit and accompanying the phrase with overdone, touristy hand motions. It slayed the other guys, even Pickles, and he sent Toki an appreciative smile.

Eventually the band currently playing was replaced with another band that sucked marginally less balls and Toki and the guys wandered over to watch, buying churros from a vender on the way. Murderface complained about his and announced his intentions to give his complaints to the vender; Dick wandered off to find a bathroom. Nathan, Pickles and Toki inspected the stalls, spending some time at a local fruit and vegetable seller, picking out the phallic foods and laughing at them, making jokes about who matched what fruit in size and shape the best and holding them in front of their crotches like the mature young men they were. Toki sort of felt like a third wheel and hung back, watching as Pickles picked through what everybody was selling and Nathan stood beside him, making noises of agreement whenever Pickles expressed an opinion and occasionally offering his own. Eventually Dick and Murderface found them once more, both mumbling unhappily about their respective experiences away from the herd, and they returned to meandering around and getting on people's nerves with their brashness, which Toki felt bad about until he remembered where he was and what he was doing. Then he got pumped.

Skwisgaar was easy to notice in a crowd, everything about him remarkable, but mostly because he towered above everybody else. They passed the churro stand for the fifth time, the vender glaring at Murderface, when Toki saw Skwisgaar and the rest of his band approaching the stage. Skwisgaar glided, swanlike and elegant; the other guys wandered behind him, sluggish and nonchalant. Toki wanted to tug on Pickles's shirtsleeve and point, but instead he said, "Guys, I think's that them, Fuckface Academy," and did some half-step dance thing as he went to turn in the direction of the band, then stopped, then started walking with his friends again.

"Oh, thank the _lordsch,_" Murderface said, and he changed his direction towards the stage. The rest followed him, and Toki felt like somebody had just thrown a bucket of water over him, overcome with eagerness and excitement. Dick tittered beside him, straightening his clothes and his sunglasses, presumably trying to look professional. Murderface was still actively ignoring Dick and making a sort of show out of it; he kept failing at starting conversations with people walking past them, asking some old lady about her teacup Chihuahua and stealing a shaved ice from a little boy, slurping at the artificially red chips with his abnormally small tongue. Dick didn't seem to notice, his eyes transfixed on Attending Fuckface Academy, licking his lips over and over again.

"So after this we can leave this gay-ass festival, right?" Nathan said as he tried to compact himself into a foldable chair on the lawn in front of the stage. It was not going well. "God, this sucks ass_._"

Toki shushed Nathan and leaned forward. He sat between Pickles and Dick as usual, Nathan beside Pickles and Murderface beside Nathan. Dick finally acknowledged Murderface and kept looking between him and the stage. Toki was trying very hard not to stare as Fuckface Academy set up, but he couldn't help it. Skwisgaar was not involved; he was off to the side of the stage, leaning against it and resting his elbows on it, smoking a cigarette that look like it'd been hastily rolled by hand. Toki felt something burst inside of him like fireworks, individual sparks flying through his chest, when Skwisgaar dropped the cigarette, rubbed it out with the heel of his studded leather boots, caught Toki's eye and walked over in his direction.

"How do I look?" he asked Pickles, out of instinct. Pickles raised his eyebrows at him, double eyebrow rings catching the sun and hurting Toki's eyes, and said nothing.

Toki stood and shook Skwisgaar's hand—rough, calloused, unsurprising considering his career. Skwisgaar had his hair pulled back, a few too-short strands falling on his cheekbones, eyes narrowed and eyebrows knitted, plush lips tight. He was wearing a black t-shirt a few sizes too big, tucked behind his Swedish flag belt buckle as always, and extremely distressed white jeans, boots hiding underneath. There was sweat on his hairline, and Toki looked everywhere but at his eyes, afraid to meet them. Instead he examined the faint frown lines, the cut of his jaw, the contours of his cheeks, and the empty piercing holes in his ears; Toki counted three, two in the lobe, one on the cartilage, and wondered why Skwisgaar wasn't wearing any earrings.

"Hellos, ja?" Skwisgaar said, and gave Toki's hand a final shake and bringing him back into the conversation. "Yous comes."

"Yeah, I comes," Toki said. He flushed. Skwisgaar raised a single eyebrow but otherwise ignored Toki's slip.

"And yous brings your friends." Skwisgaar scanned the four guys still sitting, and Toki did too; Pickles was whispering something in Nathan's ear; Nathan was slouching, uninterested in the world, though he grunted an appreciative laughter at whatever Pickles had to say; Dick was staring at Skwisgaar like he was a piece of meat slightly too expensive to afford and he had to recalculate his budget because he really felt like steak that night; and Murderface had fallen asleep, snoring and twitching. Skwisgaar laughed.

"Yeah, that Murderface," Toki said, chuckling a little himself. He felt pathetic and uncool in the present company, though he supposed Nathan and Pickles weren't _too _bad. "So, um. How are you?"

"I just comes over here to sees yous," Skwisgaar said. "I ams glad you ams able to makes it. Good show tonight. Stays around afterwards. Yous, not your, ah, friends, ja?" Skwisgaar did not look at Toki while he said this but behind him. At what, Toki could not know, because he was focused on Skwisgaar's Adam's apple, as that was what he was at eyelevel with. He watched it bob as Skwisgaar talked, overcome with the impulse to reach up and lick it, resisting the urge to make a _bobbing for apples _joke in his head. At least the pun was festive, considering Halloween was the next day and they were standing in an October festival.

"Okay, ja, I does that," Toki said, cursing himself at the terrible English that he was quickly succumbing to. He took so much pride in his ability to master languages, too. "I, um, don't have a ride, though—"

Skwisgaar shrugged and put a hand over Toki's mouth to get him to shut up and then walked away without another word. Toki fell into his seat and licked his lips again and again, mouth open, rotating motion until his saliva faded into his skin. It tasted like cigarettes.

Toki ignored Pickles's badgering as he watched Skwisgaar return to the stage. The rest of the band was ready behind their instruments, Skwisgaar's beautiful guitar awaiting him onstage. He strolled behind it and took it in his arms in a fluid motion, his body dipping inwards as he hunched, sending pangs vibrating inside of Toki. Mark Skively took the microphone and tapped it a couple times, signaling attention. The seats in front of them were halfway filled with bored, apathetic festival-goers. Toki was leaning forward in his seat, gripping the plastic edge with such force he was losing feeling in his fingers, mouth still open.

"The first song we're gonna play is some shit Skwisgaar forced us to, I don't know," Mark said, laughing a bit. Three people in the audience stood up and left. "So—" Three additional people stood up and left. "Okay, I'm going to shut up and play, now." Under his breath he mumbled, "it's a cover of a song called Honey Bunny by a band called Girls, you unappreciative fucks," but since he hadn't removed the microphone from his mouth, the audience heard it. More people left; Nathan was bellowing and Pickles snickering with laughter.

The song was not very grunge at all, with soft vocals and an uncomplicated guitar chord and drum beat backing it up, and Toki tried very hard not to overanalyze the fact that Skwisgaar picked this song and what the lyrics said. Skwisgaar's face was screwed up throughout it, like he was annoyed, more so than usual. The song slowed in the middle and Mark crooned, getting down on his knees and everything, and people continued to leave the seats until Toki, his friends, and a handful of other individuals were the only ones left. Toki still gripped the edge of his seat, hands aching. He felt perched for flight, on some natural high that could take him out of this world, and his loneliness in that feeling made the show even more special to him.

Fuckface Academy played a couple more original songs that they hadn't played at the concert. They were a fountain of jumbled, half-written musical messes; without Mark's in-between chatting and announcing of the song titles, it all sort of ran together, the same noisy shit one after the other with only minutely different chords and beats and lyrics. Mark worked up a sweat bouncing around a stage and at one point slipped and slammed his knee, rattling the whole structure. He sprung right back up and limped around, cursing and out of breath through the song, though it sort of made it better. Toki heard Nathan telling Pickles how fuckin' metal it was, wholly without sarcasm. Toki saw Skwisgaar smirk to himself at Mark's antics and felt very connected to him, though he continued to look away whenever Skwisgaar caught his eye.

About half an hour in Mark stopped, wiped his face with a towel that'd been sitting at the front of the stage, took a huge gulp of water and raised the microphone to speak again. "Okay, I'm sorry for this, but I gotta explain some shit before this next one. This was not my fuckin' idea, okay? So if this sucks, blame him, not me. Skwisgaar's being all weird and shit and wanted to, like, specialize this show or something, I don't know, what a Swede, am I right? Anyway, he's gonna sing some song he wrote. It's, like, really fucking gay, and it's called Gray Skies, Blue Eyes or something like that, I don't even fuckin' know. Enjoy it. You probably won't, but fuck it, I'm out." He dropped his mic to the stage; the noise that resulted woke Murderface from his slumber and he sputtered, grabbing Dick's knee and asking where the gun was. Dick offered no response.

Skwisgaar took his own microphone and sighed, then shrugged. The band began to play again; there was maybe ten seconds of instrumentals before Skwisgaar began to sing, but it felt like ten years to Toki, whom was filled to the brim with frothy anticipation. Skwisgaar had a rich baritone of a singing voice, smooth and natural, and every time he hit a note it sent a shiver through Toki's body. By the end he was covered in goose bumps and crying quietly and without tears. His body shook, bones crumbling to the bottom of his belly, all of his internal organs shutting down; he saw the light, felt born again, like he'd been resurrected out of a religious experience. Pickles asked him if he was okay and Toki ignored him, relaxing his grip on his chair and sitting back in his seat, spreading his trembling knees wide. He felt like he'd just came and needed a short nap to recover, but his friends were already rising around him, poking and prodding him with questions.

"We leavin'?" Pickles asked, literally physically prodding Toki by jostling his knee.

"Oh, yeah, about that," Toki said, and he rose out of his seat slowly, like awakening from the deepest slumber one could possibly experience. He forgot how to walk and stand momentarily and almost collapsed. "Skwisgaar, um. He asked me to stick around."

"Oh?" Dick and Pickles made the noise simultaneously; Dick elbowed Pickles out of the way to stand face-to-face with Toki, slamming his hands on Toki's shoulders. "Well then, I guess we will too." Dick shook Toki a little. "Don't. _Fuck. This. Up,_" he hissed, leaning in close; Toki stared at his reflection in Dick's dark sunglasses.

"Douchebag," Pickles muttered, shoving Dick out of the way and replacing Dick's hands with his own on Toki's shoulders. He did not lean in nose-bumping, uncomfortably close. "Don't be a trashy whore and fuck on the first date," Pickles said. "And if you do, well, good for you. Anyway. Don't really have that much advice. Let me know how it goes. We'll meet you back here at, like, a quarter till one, okay?" Pickles released Toki with force and Toki stumbled backwards, almost falling. His friends left him while he tripped, Pickles announcing that they were going to get gelato and putting effort into pronouncing it properly; he failed miserably. Toki watched Nathan throw an arm around Pickles's shoulders to keep himself steady as he laughed heartily and walked at the same time, a complicated task.

Skwisgaar wandered over, found Toki and threw an arm around him, taking Toki completely by surprise. Skwisgaar did not smell pleasantly but he did smell delightfully, pheromones smacking Toki in the face. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep against Skwisgaar's side, but Skwisgaar seemed to be leading him towards the stage, towards the band, which were packing up while Skwisgaar watched with an arm around Toki still. Toki was not used to the warm weight of the extension of another person and it was strange, but it was not unwelcome.

"Yous remember their names, ja?" Skwisgaar asked, looking down at Toki. Toki kept his head tucked, still afraid to meet eye contact and baffled by Skwisgaar's calmness.

"The singer is Mark," Toki said, "and you're Skwisgaar, and…um…"

Skwisgaar laughed, the condescending nature of it setting Toki at ease. He felt Skwisgaar's body shake against his and instinctively moved closer to it, their hips bumping. "The rhythym ams George, Georgey boy, he ams horrible. The drummer ams Ritchie, he ams horrible, too."

Toki, now gripping Skwisgaar's arm around him with his right hand, looked up at Skwisgaar. "Can I be honest with you?" he asked him, nerves swelling. Fuckface Academy were indifferent to Skwisgaar and Toki as they continued to assemble their shit and move in a generally offstage direction; the next band, some folksy Eastern European folks by the look of it, tapped their feet with their hands on their hips on the opposite side of the stage. They had instruments Toki did not know the name of, legitimate, wooden things in oblong shapes.

Skwisgaar looked down, face flat in what Toki hoped to be an indifferent manner, and said,"Ja?"

Toki inhaled deeply and tightened his hold, rubbing Skwisgaar's wrist with his thumb in little circles absentmindedly. "Your band is really fucking bad."

Skwisgaar let go of Toki and cackled, two hands on his stomach. When he finished he went to run a hand through his hair and fucked up his ponytail; as he was redoing it he said, "I knows, little Toki, I knows. Fuckface Academy ams horrible. But, it ams good for me, at de moments."

"Hvorfor?" Toki asked, and then he groaned. "I mean, why?"

"I knows what yous means," Skwisgaar said. "Remembers, I speaks Swedish, similar languages. Anyways. I am sleepingks at Mark's apartment with de rest of de band and we ams havingks shows most nights. De band sucks, but it ams new and Mark knows many peoples," Skwisgaar explained. He put his arm around Toki again and gestured towards Mark, calling his name. Mark fastened the clasp on his bass case and took it off stage, the last thing they had to do before making way for the Eastern European folks, and came over as the next band began to fill the stage with themselves.

"Yeah?" Mark asked Skwisgaar. He looked towards Toki and then extended a hand to him; Toki shook it. Mark had similarly callused hands, but they were significantly smaller, and Mark was shorter than Toki, which was sort of weird. Mark had a boyish face that made him seem a lot younger than what Toki assumed he was.

"This ams Toki," Skwisgaar said. "You remembers him from de other night?"

"No," Mark said. He shook his head; his bangs flounced against his forehead, and Toki saw he had sort of an acne-ridden face, deep scarring around his sideburns and on his forehead. "I don't. Are you picking up roadies already, Skwis?"

Toki felt Skwisgaar twitch at _Skwis, _but Skwisgaar said nothing about that. "No, I ams goingks to takes him out downtown. You guys leaves without me, ja?"He was smiling, as was Mark, but neither smiles reached their eyes, Toki noted as he tracked the conversation between them.

"What time are you gonna be back? We have to, like, practice and shit tonight. We have that party gig tomorrow." Mark pulled his phone from his back pocket and checked it, rolling his eyes at something he saw on the screen. "Look, it's almost six o'clock, you can have, like, five hours with the kid."

Toki made a face at being called _the kid_ but it was his turn to say nothing about it. "It ams your band, but you ams not de manager," Skwisgaar said, fake politeness oozing in his voice. Toki felt generally uncomfortable and wanted to get away from Mark; he was already looking forward to being taken out downtown. "I does what I wants. I ams not needingks to practice, yous and George and Ritchie ams."

Mark went to say something and stopped, then scowled. "Fuck it," Mark said, and he walked away, returning to the pile of instruments and equipment the band now had to load. Skwisgaar led Toki away in the direction of the gates that would take them from the festival and to the border between the business district and the actual downtown.

"Sorry about dat," Skwisgaar said. He took his arm from around Toki's shoulders and pulled out his cigarettes and a lighter—a basic lighter, black, that took him a couple times to actually light. "You smokes?" He asked, proffering Toki the carton of cigarettes, which were much more impressive. In it were a couple of joints as well, rolled in nice white paper and hiding nestled in the rows.

"Only these," Toki said, pointing to the joints.

Skwisgaar chuckled. "Ofs course." He selected a cigarette for himself and put the carton back in his front pocket. "We'll smokes those later. I knows a good spot, if you ams scared about gettingks arrested."

"I'm not scared," Toki said, though he did feel sort of scared. Mostly he felt exhilarated and excited, every inch of his body alive and alight with expectation and experience. At the gates they turned left and started their trek downtown, soldiering through the ghetto part towards the more urbane section. Toki went downtown all the time but it felt different today, walking alongside a smoking Skwisgaar who routinely pointed towards people or things to talk about them: "Sees dat girl? She gives good head." "Mark's coke dealer ams hangingks out at dat store all de time." "We played a show there once. Good venue. If we plays there again, you should comes."

"How long have you been with Fuckface Academy?" Toki asked at one point, after they'd been walking for about ten minutes. Skwisgaar had finished his cigarette and had replaced the arm around Toki, which make Toki very happy indeed. Downtown they didn't garner that many looks, at least not judging ones; people all of all kinds regularly stared at Skwisgaar though, and he winked back at the more attractive ones. Toki found it amusing.

"Couple of months," Skwisgaar said. "When I gets to Florida I ams lost, so I wanders around. I ends up here, downtown, and I sees flyers for Fuckface Academy. They needs a guitarist. I ams a guitarist, a fucking good guitarist, so I auditions and naturally, I gets de part."

"Wowee, that ams pretty cool," Toki said. He dared a look at Skwisgaar; he was looking straight ahead, arm around Toki like it was nothing, and internally Toki felt like he was dying, his heart thrashing in his chest.

Skwisgaar made a noise in his throat. "If you says so. And yous, little Toki? What you does?"

"I skate," Toki said routinely; skateboarding was his only true hobby, and he did even that on borrowed time. "I smoke. I hang with the guys a lot; they take me places, like to shows. I kind of like learning languages, too."

"You ams boring," Skwisgaar said. He let go of Toki momentarily to retrieve another cigarette, placing it unlit between his lips, and then replaced his arm, automatic, like it was nothing, and Toki continued to die. "But you ams pretty, so it ams okay."

"I'm not boring, it's my parents," Toki said. He didn't take offense—he knew he lead a boring, uninteresting life, but he had an excuse. "Do you know the old stuffy Norwegian Protestant type? They're that type. We moved here for church-related reasons."

"Oh, yes, I knows de type," Skwisgaar said, nodding in agreement. "Makes sense, I supposes. Parents ams dildos. My mom ams a whore." Skwisgaar let go of Toki to retrieve his lighter and lit his cigarette with a flourish, taking a long drag. He breathed out a smoke ring, which sort of impressed Toki, and replaced his arm. They'd been strolling down an avenue occupied mostly by law and insurance offices, and Toki made a game out of counting the ones that ended in –_stein._ He was up to seven, and pointed out another to Skwisgaar whenever he saw one.

"For money?" Toki asked, looking up to Skwisgaar and trying to read his face, which remained without expression.

"For moneys," Skwisgaar said, nodding again, slow this time. He had a general air of wisdom to him, perhaps because he was older, that intrigued Toki. He enjoyed listening to him talk and wanted to all night. "But, she ams in Sweden, and I ams here, so who cares? Not I's."

"Me neither," Toki said. "My mom doesn't do anything but take care of the house. I like her more than my dad, though." Mentioning his dad made Toki cringe, old scars throbbing white-hot under his clothes, and if Skwisgaar noticed he didn't say anything.

"I ams not knowingks my dad," Skwisgaar said. He took another drag on the cigarette, face expressionless. "But I ams not caringks about dat, neither. Apathy ams a good way to lives life, Toki."

"I agrees." Toki nodded his head emphatically. He stopped trying to read Skwisgaar's face and looked ahead. They were the only ones walking down this particular avenues, though there were some cars parked in the street. "You don't get hurt, you don't hurt people. You exist. But it still doesn't mean anything."

"I ams a nihilist," Skwisgaar said. "You probably ams, too. I believes in nothing but destrucktion." Another solemn drag on the cigarette, another smoke ring, his mouth forming a most delectable _o _shape.

"That's some heavy shit," Toki said. "Deep."

"You should hears me when I ams high." Skwisgaar dropped the cigarette and rubbed it out, interrupting their walking briefly. When they resumed Skwisgaar pulled Toki to him closer and forcefully, which Toki liked. He ignored the giddiness bubbling up his chest and continued the conversation.

"I will, won't I?"

"Yes, you will, but dat ams de third part. There ams three part to dis little excursion—if it makes yous happy, you may calls it a date—and we ams almost near de first one. Just a little more walkingks."

Toki bubbled with keenness, adding a bounce to his step. He fought the urge to babble incessantly about his excitement, as he so often did, and try to retain at least some of his cool. Skwisgaar seemed to notice this, though. "I ams not a pedophile," he said, squeezing Toki's shoulder, "but you ams actingks like a kid, and dat sort of makes me want to fucks you, ja." Toki's eyes widened and pupils dilated automatically, the bounce in his step disappearing as he froze. Skwisgaar laughed. Toki reveled in that minute for the next five, replaying it in his mind—he himself could not imagine sex as a practical reality, but the ease of which Skwisgaar spoke of it, and the fact that Skwisgaar spoke of it in relation to Toki, whom normally thought of himself as such a not sexual being, blew Toki's mind. He wanted to be fucked by Skwisgaar on the sidewalk then and there, lose his virginity amongst the homeless beggars, teenagers that thought they were too cool, and new age liberals whom crowded the sidewalks of downtown, and he could not shake the simple sentence from his brain. Skwisgaar selected yet another cigarette and smoked while Toki walked silent, the corners of his lips curled up, and Toki knew that Skwisgaar knew exactly what he'd done and was sort of getting off on it.

"Heres we ams," Skwisgaar said eventually, swinging Toki around to the blacked-out door of a small store nestled in with some others down an unremarkable avenue. "Part number one." Toki read the sign on the door—_Lilies, _in small, bubbly white lettering, and underneath, _Your One Stop Adult Shop. _"They ams not needingks an ID," Skwisgaar explained, and he opened the door for Toki.

The store was small, dimly lit with miniscule chandeliers hanging from the painted black ceiling providing the only light source, and divided in half by a thick black curtain. Everything was black—the floor, glassy and reflective; the walls, smooth and intimidating; Toki felt like he'd entered a cave. The front half of the store seemed normal, DVDs, VHS tapes, books and magazines arranged neatly on shelves or thrown haphazardly into sale bins with some assorted jewelry and clothes thrown about. There was a counter with a cash register, bins of jelly bracelet and a bored, heavily pierced girl sitting behind it, bare feet propped up on a red satin cushion and reading a celebrity gossip magazine. Skwisgaar gave Toki a few seconds to take the front half in and then marched him straight towards the back, swiping aside the heavy black curtain. The back half of the store felt like walking into somebody's deranged sex dungeon—there was a rack of increasingly sultry lingerie to the far left, and then there were shelves and racks and displays of various sexual oddities, from modest vibrators to the sex swing hanging in a corner.

"On our first date…you take me to a sex shop," Toki said, turning to look at Skwisgaar. He had not yet decided his feelings on the matter and so kept his face impassive, body stiff under Skwisgaar's arm.

"You ams so innocent, it seemed appropriate." Skwisgaar met Toki's eye and raised a single eyebrow. "It ams an educational exkperience."

"You must've really wanted to fuck me," Toki said. He was focused on Skwisgaar; they had turned into each other, their chests making an angle, and Toki was actively avoiding looking at the store's stock. He was not going to lie to himself—he was intrigued, quite intrigued actually, and wanted to inspect everything thoroughly. He couldn't decide if he hated Skwisgaar for this or loved him for it, though he had come to the conclusion that it was such a totally Skwisgaar thing to do.

"Ams I goingks to?" Skwisgaar raised both eyebrows and squeezed Toki's shoulder, leaning in close. Toki could see the finer features of his face—the translucent eyelashes, the pores of his skin. Toki weaseled out from under Skwisgaar's arm and pushed him back, a little rough but not too much, and Skwisgaar stumbled. He caught himself before his back could acquaint itself with a rack of whips, leashes, and collars, some studded outwards, some studded inwards.

"Fucks you! I ams not a whore! I does not fuck on the first date!" Toki whispered-shouted. He couldn't make it through the whole sentence without laughing. Skwisgaar laughed along with him and shoved Toki with a single hand; behind Toki there was a blank wall with a large white flower stencil and Toki's back hit it, rattling the shelves (containing strangely shaped objects that Toki did not know were exactly) on the adjacent wall. Skwisgaar advanced on him and placed a hand on either side of Toki's head, leaning in close. He was tall enough to shield Toki with his body, and Toki placed his hands on Skwisgaar's chest, almost expecting to be kissed. When a few seconds passed and their lips had not yet met, Toki pushed Skwisgaar off of him.

"Dildo," Skwisgaar said. Toki had stood up and Skwisgaar came forward to stand in front of him, though not too close. He messed with Toki's hair, twisting the entirety of it around his hand.

"Yes, there's a lot of those here," Toki said. "Look, there's some over there." He pointed at them, purposely being a smartass.

"Let's goes and looks at them," Skwisgaar said, and he linked his arm in Toki's. Go and look at them they did. The dildos and vibrators and other things meant for sticking inside of you in your lonesome were spread across two racks and lined up neatly by size; Toki started at the miniscule ones made to look like other things for concealment (his favorite was one disguised as lipstick that really ended up looking like a dog's dick) and made his way up to the comically large that made his ass hurt to look at. He enjoyed the colors, at least—some were fleshy, some black, and others were neon.

"The bright colored ones remind me of popsicles," he mused, scratching his chin. He was bent over beside Skwisgaar, also bent, to look at the ones on the middle shelf, which were all a similar size and organized in surprisingly sufficient rainbow.

"If you ams wantingks me to makes a suckingks joke, I ams not goingks to," Skwisgaar said. "I ams more high class than dat."

"Damns it," Toki said. He nudged Skwisgaar's shoulder, playful, hoping that that could become a thing between them. He was delighted when Skwisgaar nudged back, and they took turns shoving each other more aggressively, accumulating in Skwisgaar pushing Toki against the rack of didoes. A few fell to the floor; Toki cursed and Skwisgaar bent over to replace them, sniggering. After that they made their way to the more extreme toys, the ones that Toki weren't sure of their use or purpose, intimidating and big.

"Their specialties ams BDSM," Skwisgaar explained. He picked up a body harness by a single finger. "The other store downtown, their specialties ams costumes. My thoughts am that dis would be more fun."

Toki snatched the harness from Skwisgaar and held it in both hands, twisting it around to examine it. It was the display one; the actual ones for sale were stacked in plastic bags ready for purchase. "Kinky," Toki offered, and he handed the harness back to Skwisgaar.

"Indeed." Skwisgaar placed the harness back down. He picked up a ball gag and tossed it at Toki; they played catch with it back-and-forth for a few minutes, Toki throwing it underhanded to get the most height, Skwisgaar aiming for Toki's mouth. Toki opened his mouth and caught it between his teeth to humor Skwisgaar, and then spat it out and handed it to him to put away. They made their way through the back of the store, fucking around with the various peculiarities, Skwisgaar having to explain to Toki what a few things were. Toki found it all amusing and some of the things mildly arousing, though he didn't mention that part. They grew bored of the back, which they realized had a small selection after you pick through everything individually and the novelty wears off, and headed back to the front.

Toki flipped through the porn magazines and found vintage Playboys, way overpriced, that he sort of wanted to buy, more for the fact that they were vintage Playboys than for the naked women hiding between the pages. Skwisgaar saw him lingering and asked, "You sees somethingks you wants?"

"Fuck no, my parents would actually kill me," Toki said as he flipped through the pages of one from the seventies absentmindedly. "No joke. I would be dead. These ams pretty cool, though."

Skwisgaar took it from Toki and held it sideways, flipping through each individual page quickly. "Eh," he said. He handed it back to Toki and walked off to study the different flavored lubes and condoms. Toki placed the Playboy back and went to join him. "Your favorite flavor?" Skwisgaar asked him, hands behind his back and head turned towards Toki.

Toki thought for a second. "I like candy," he said. "So, fruity flavors. Cherry, like this." He indicated a box. Also present were themed condoms (Toki enjoyed the little tuxedo ones) and with specialties, like extra ribbed or for the extra-large. Skwisgaar plucked the box of cherry flavored ones from its neighbors and walked over to the cash register. The girl did not bother to take her feet down while she made the transaction, taking Skwisgaar's money and asking him if he wanted a bag (no—he slid them into his pocket) before marking the exchange in a notebook and returning her attention to her magazine.

They exited the store to find that the sun had set though it was not quite legitimately dark yet, a kind of bluish tone settling everything. Instead of putting his arm around him Skwisgaar took Toki's hand, locking their fingers, and Toki's heart missed a few beats. They resumed walking and talking and Toki's knuckles occasionally brushed against Skwisgaar's thigh, which consistently electrified him.

"So, de second part ams not too far," Skwisgaar said. He squeezed Toki's hand to get his attention. Toki had neglected to continue on the conversation, caught up in the moments and letting them go by without further discussion, and he felt badly about that.

"What is it?" Toki asked. He was doing the absent-minded thumb-circling thing again, over and over, getting used to holding hands. They did not attract many stares at all, and Toki felt tranquil, like he was amongst the proper people to be amongst and having a great time, which he was.

"Sayingks dat would ruins de surprise," Skwisgaar said, and he clucked his tongue at Toki, shaking his head. Toki grinned, looking down at the sidewalk and their respective shoes before making eye contact again.

"I'm impatient," Toki whined, and he attempted to do a puppy-dog face at Skwisgaar, but it just made him laugh and lean over to twist his hair with his other hand again.

"You ams such a child," Skwisgaar said as he smoothed Toki's hair back in place. "It ams endearing, I guesses."

Toki shrugged and swatted Skwisgaar's hand away, combing his fingers through his hair. "I'm only two years younger," he reminded Skwisgaar. He held two fingers up from the hand that was not holding Skwisgaar's to emphasize his point.

"What year ams you in in school?" They turned a corner onto a somewhat busy street, cars driving past and a significant more amount of people walking. Toki observed everybody, the way that they were dressed and whom they were with and what they held, and continued to remind himself how much he loved the atmosphere.

"10th grade," Toki said. "I'm a sophomore. I have two years of school after this one left, and then college, if I go to it."

"School ams dildoes," Skwisgaar said. He stopped Toki in front of a restaurant—Toki guessed Italian by the smell, the olive decals and the name, _Sergio's_. Skwisgaar opened the door for Toki with one arm and did not let go of his hand, letting Toki pass through first and following behind him. Toki felt sort of like a girl, but in a good way, in a being taken care of and being protected way, that he liked. The restaurant was larger than he thought it would be and they were seated at a table by a window, round and high-topped with regal chairs. Sergio's was mood lit with dark-paneled walls and maroon accents, making Toki feel warmer inside than he already had, and their waiter (named Giovanni) was very official in his black pants and white shirt. He left Skwisgaar and Toki alone to decide on drinks and promised to be back in five minutes.

"There ams dis Scandinavian place down here, also," Skwisgaar said as he perused the menu, "but I thinks dat would be an insults to ours heritage. Georgey boy says dis place ams very good. He ams an eighth Italian and ams very particular about his Italian food."

"I like Italian," Toki said. "Who doesn't?" His eyes went up and down the menu. He did not know what most of the items were, strange names with double consonants in loopy font, but the prices were high and the pictures of the food on the menu gorgeous, so Toki was excited to eat here. He eventually found something he recognized and knew he liked.

"Uncultured peoples, I presumes," Skwisgaar said. He set his menu down gently. Skwisgaar had initially sat down with excellent, straight posture, and then began to wilt, continuously leaning more in. "I ams gettingks de veal. Ams you done decidingks?"

"Fettuccini alfredo," Toki said. He set his menu down as well. "Water to drink. This is very nice, Skwisgaar." He leaned in as well.

"Ams you surprised?" Skwisgaar reclined in his chair and put his arms over one another in front of him, lightly dragging his finger around on the tabletop. Toki mirrored him, drawing his own fingers around in wider circles until they eventually found Skwisgaar, and locked their index fingers. Under the table he nudged Skwisgaar with his foot and made eye contact.

"I had low expectations," Toki said. Skwisgaar's lips and interlocked index finger twitched just the slightest, and he nudged Toki back. "This is my first date, after all." Toki curled his finger and crumpled his nose, again, deliberately being a smartass.

"Really? I thinks dat de girls ams all over a guy likes you," Skwisgaar said. He scanned Toki up and down; Toki felt modest and vulnerable, though not violated. He was wearing a plain white shirt with a short-sleeve, checkered button up over that, and cargo shorts, not a very impressive outfit at all, small sections of his hair falling over his shoulders naturally.

"They don't care about me," Toki said, shrugging. "Well—there was this one girl, but she was weird. It's okay, though, because I don't care about them."

"Yous ams gay, ja?" Skwisgaar asked. He nudged Toki under the table, the toe of his boot hitting Toki's calf. Toki hopped in his seat, just a little bit. "Just an assumpktions."

Toki nodded. "Recently gay, ja," he said.

Skwisgaar laughed. "I ams not caringks," he said. "If it ams hot and it has a hole I will fucks it. It ams rare, though, that I takes it on a date. Yous should feel specials."

"I feels special," Toki said. He met Skwisgaar's eyes and smiled.

"I ams not, however, goingks to gets sentimentals about it," Skwisgaar said. "Tonight ams an excepktions because I ams tryingks to makes a good impression on it. It ams not often I acts like dis." He pulled Toki's hand in farther and properly held it on top of the table, finding Toki's other under the table and holding it on top of Toki's knee.

"Oh, I believes you," Toki said. "I normally talk more."

Skwisgaar chuckled. "I ams sure dat you does. Does I makes you nervous?"

"A little," Toki admitted, casting his eyes downward.

"Dat's cute," Skwisgaar said. The statement had the condescending air to it that made Toki snap his head up and curl his nails into Skwisgaar's hands, tilting his head and smiling. Skwisgaar kicked him under the table. In return, Toki stuck his tongue out at him and let go of Skwisgaar's hands, picking up the menu again.

"Are we getting desert?" Toki asked, flipping to the back. Just the descriptions of the sweets alone made his mouth water and threatened to send him into a diabetic coma.

"No," Skwisgaar said. "I ams not rich, and we ams not havingks the time."

"Okay," Toki said, and he set the menu down again. Skwisgaar sparked his curiosity with the lack of time comment, but Toki did not have the opportunity to ask about it as Giovanni returned to take their orders. Skwisgaar ordered for Toki, which Toki found sort of annoying and appealing at the same time. He felt that way about most of Skwisgaar's actions, actually, though the appealing generally outweighed the annoying. When the waiter left Skwisgaar took Toki's hand again and Toki spelt his name out on Skwisgaar's hand with his thumb, last name and all.

"Dat ams a girly thing to do," Skwisgaar said. "The thumb thing." Toki stopped; Skwisgaar sent him a look. "Did I says to stop?"

"You said it was girly," Toki said, but he started doing it again, returning to circles as opposed to letters. "I did it—fuck, what's the word—naturlig."

Skwisgaar shrugged. "You ams a natural."

Toki did not quite know what that was referring to, but he let the statement lay at rest, and took the small break in conversation as a chance to observe his surroundings, which he had not yet gotten the chance to do. Being early evening the restaurant was filled, every table occupied, mostly by heterosexual couples. Nobody paid attention to Skwisgaar and Toki; they blended in, another two average faces in the clientele, although he did see women snatch glances at them periodically, presumably at Skwisgaar. Toki felt that familiar pride swell in him—he wanted them to look, to look at him and what he had, and he curled his fingers tighter around Skwisgaar, who tightened his grip back.

They chatted idly while they waited for their food, mostly about what restaurants and food they respectively liked, which turned into a debate over whether Norwegian or Swedish food was better. Skwisgaar was cut off in the middle of a long tirade about the values of Swedish cuisine by the arrival of their food, of which there was a lot, and the abundant smell scrumptious. Skwisgaar cut his veal into tiny bite sized pieces before placing each one individually in his mouth and chewing the appropriate amount of times; Toki shoveled his fettuccini into his mouth and lopped up remaining sauce with the complimentary breadsticks before thrusting them into his mouth as well.

"This food is amazing," Toki said at one point, taking a break from slamming food down his throat to drink some water. He had two lemon wedges perched on the rim of his glass, having asked for Skwisgaar's, being a fan of lemon. He picked one up and sucked from it.

"I hopes so, for dis price," Skwisgaar said. He had made his way through half his veal and had finished his accompanying roasted green beans and garlic mashed red potatoes, whereas Toki had maybe two forkfuls of pasta and no breadsticks left. "My food ams very good as well," he said, and he speared another piece of veal as if to make his point.

They finished their food and Skwisgaar paid, leaving a generous tip. Toki was full and sleep, holding Skwisgaar's hand languidly, if such a thing was possible. It had dropped in temperature outside, Florida behaving in its trademark bipolar way, but it wasn't too chilly. It was fully dark and the throng of people had dissolved to just a little bustle. Skwisgaar lead Toki deeper into downtown, closer to the waterfront that they were destined to hit eventually. Carbohydrates in Toki's stomach made him resistant to conversation and he dared to put his head on Skwisgaar's shoulder; the lack of reaction from Skwisgaar allowed him to keep him there.

"Ams you tired?" Skwisgaar asked. "Likes a baby?"

"Heavy food," Toki mumbled. His eyes were closed, completely reliant on Skwisgaar to guide him. He stayed like this only for a few minutes before taking his head off of his shoulder as his food began to digest and he began to feel more awake, the walking helping. "What time is it? I don't have a phone. Or a watch."

Skwisgaar took his out from one of his pockets and read the time. "It ams about nine o'clock," he said as he returned it to his pants. "We ams right on time."

"For what?"

"You ams goingks to see."

They were not in the nicest part of downtown, leering men crowding on street corners and dubiously dressed women flocking towards them, but Toki did not feel unsafe. He usually never did downtown as he went with Nathan, Pickles, Murderface and Dick, and Nathan's bulk alone scared people off, in addition to Murderface looking ready to go on a killing spree any second and actually carrying a knife on him at all times. Pickles knew a lot of people too, enough that people knew not to fuck with him because you'd be fucking with a whole mess of people you didn't want to get involved with; same with Dick, though people commonly hated Dick. Skwisgaar did not have the same menacing factors as Toki's usual gang, but there was something in his height and the way he carried himself that made him intimidating, even if he was on the slender side. There was something comforting in holding hands and knocking knuckles against each other's hips anyway, the physical connection and affection enough to make Toki feel protected.

They surpassed the sketchier part and hit the heart of downtown, more people there in anticipation of the nightlife, trendy expensive boutiques and bars on every avenue. This part of downtown was lit festively for Halloween, kick-off parties and groups of people in half-costumes every other block, and Toki's post-dinner sleepiness dissipated as the aura excited him. Skwisgaar led him through complicated mazes of sidewalks and people until they eventually hit another sketchy part, but a place Toki was familiar with. They were near Dick's neighborhood in the part that was near the water, the lights not as bright and the noise fading, but they were still close to the hub. Skwisgaar took Toki off the main path through downtown and to an alleyway that opened up onto a small beach, a break in the seawall, totally deserted.

"Businesses, dey dies down here," Skwisgaar explained. He kicked aside an empty beer bottle at the mouth of the beach and carefully led Toki down the steep slope to the flat part of the sand. It was not very big, maybe ten feet between beginning and the sea and ten feet wide, but there was enough room for Skwisgaar and Toki to sit comfortably side-by-side and so they did, arms interlocking behind their backs as they propped themselves up on the heels of their hands. "So nobody comes down here. Perfects for smokings and watching de fireworks." Skwisgaar took the carton of cigarettes back out and lit one of the joints, handing it to Toki.

Toki inhaled; he had forgotten about the fireworks, a weekly staple of his city's downtown, something people came to see. They were normally pretty lame and short, but as tonight was Halloween's Eve, they were bound to actually be pretty cool and extensive. If they stood at an angle on the beach, they'd be able to see them and definitely hear them. "They starts at eleven and ends at twelve," Skwisgaar said as Toki passed him the joint; he handled it like a pro and inhaled sharply. "Plenty of time to gets you back, ja?"

"Ja," Toki said. He took the joint and inhaled again. "Fuck." Skwisgaar laughed.

"Is dis de only drug you do?" Skwisgaar asked as Toki passed it to him again.

"Yeah," Toki said, nodding his head and inhaling again before tipping his head back to exhale long and hard, feeling his chest heave as he watched smoke disappear into the stars. "I used to drink, but I'm not a fun drunk, so the guys don't let me. Drinking is more of Nathan's thing. And Murderface's, if he's not having a straightedge week. Dick—he's our dealer—he does coke. _A lot _of coke. Coke off of strippers' tits coke. Pickles does everything, he likes acid and weed a lot, though, he says they're his favorites. He goes on kicks, though, like he'll get really into, like, bath salts for a while." He took another drag.

Skwisgaar nodded and accepted the joint when Toki passed it back. "You ams not a fun drunk?"

"They say I'm sloppy and violent," Toki explained. He was still looking at the stars; he took his arms from behind him and laid flat on his back. Skwisgaar joined him, Toki watching him fall to his back in his peripheral vision, and entwined his fingers with Toki. "I don't know, because I don't remember things when I drink."

"Ah," Skwisgaar said. He handed the joint back to Toki. "I understands. So you only does de maryjuhwanna."

"Yep," Toki said. "The guys, they make fun of me for it. They say it's not brutal to only smoke weed." He examined the joint, fat between his fingers, and took another long drag. He held it in for too long and coughed.

"Well, it ams really not," Skwisgaar said. He bought Toki's hand up to his chest, still holding it, and let it rest on top of his heart; Toki could feel his pulse. "But I ams in a grunge band, what does I knows about beingks brutal."

"Grunge isn't bad," Toki said. He found the joint, which had somehow ended up burning a hole in his shirt on his stomach, and took another drag. He did not cough this time. "Fuckface Academy is bad."

"I'll smoke to dat," Skwisgaar said, and he did. He blew a smoke ring afterwards; Toki watched it fade away.

"How do you that?" He asked Skwisgaar, turning his head to face Skwisgaar. Skwisgaar did the same, their faces inches apart. Toki took it upon himself to memorize Skwisgaar's eyes—the color, the starburst pattern around the pupils, the shape, everything—and began, staring intently. He was distracted when Skwisgaar started to speak, and decided to memorize the lips instead, for they looked inviting.

"I ams not able to explains," Skwisgaar said. "My English amns't good enough and it ams too hard to try to in Swedish. Sorry, littles Toki."

Toki shrugged, or shrugged the best he could, as he was laying down. "It's cool, is all," he said. Skwisgaar still keeping his hand on Skwisgaar's heart, Toki felt Skwisgaar's pulse, and as he progressively got higher and they continued to talk he felt his entire body throb with every beat of Skwisgaar's heart. Perhaps the whole thing was cliché—getting stoned on a beach under the stars and engaging in the deep conversation you can only have when you're stoned—but Toki loved it, loved every second, and as he became one with Skwisgaar's heartbeat he came closer and closer to a more profound understanding of something he was not absolutely sure of. He felt content in every nook, cranny and corner of his body, a light blanket of bliss settling over his being. It was the type of serenity you can only experience with another person, and he dared not voice this to Skwisgaar, not yet, afraid of scrutiny of his serendipity. He felt connected enough in the moment to know that it was shared, not needing words as confirmation.

Skwisgaar was right; not another person even came close to infringing upon their little beach, the whole area devoid of other humans, though the beer bottles and cigarette butts proved that other people knew of the place. They smoked until they found it unnecessary, and Toki limited himself, for he found that he did not need that large of a high to accompany such an already soothing evening. Skwisgaar had a high tolerance, though the stuff was pretty high quality, better than Dick's shit by far. Toki thought of asking Skwisgaar for his dealer and decided that would be a personal betrayal against his friends—they smoked shit weed because it was Dick's shit weed, not because they liked it. In his state, Toki found this to be such a pure, beautiful expression of friendship, the sacrifice of quality to preserve the dignity of a comrade. He expressed this to Skwisgaar, who agreed that it was simply the right and noble thing to do, and thanked Toki for the compliment about the quality of his weed.

Eleven o'clock rolled around and the rumble of fireworks startled them, sending them bolting up and knocking them out of the conversation they were having, which was something about Einstein being in therapy. They scrambled to stand and to look towards the display, grabbing each other's hands immediately and simultaneously, the simple gesture sending fireworks through Toki himself for the second time that day. They watched in awe for a handful of minutes, Toki whispering various phrases that mostly consisted of _wowee _and Skwisgaar grunting in agreement, until Skwisgaar whipped Toki around to face him. He became gentle then, tender even, cupping Toki's face on both sides before leaning down to press his lips, gingerly, against Toki's. Toki closed his eyes and felt the sensation of falling, crashing through the layers of Earth until he hit the core and melted. Skwisgaar pulled away and Toki's eyelids fluttered opened; they made brief eye contact, and then Toki sprang forward, wrapping his arms around Skwisgaar's neck and kissing him at full force. Skwisgaar began to move his lips against Toki's, the feeling of which (vaguely jellyfish in nature) caught him by surprise, but he mirrored the motions quickly and readily.

They kissed for the entire hour of the fireworks—Toki kept his arms where they were and eventually knotted his fingers up in Skwisgaar's hair, feeling the back of his head, and snaked his other hand under Skwisgaar's shirt, stroking his collarbone. Skwisgaar moved up and down Toki's back and at his waist, though he didn't try to go under Toki's shirt (which he was grateful for—he would've had to have stopped and explain the scars, which he didn't want to do) or to his ass (which he wasn't grateful for—or maybe he was—he didn't actually know) and played with the ends of Toki's hair. Toki eventually mastered the art of the jellyfish kiss and took over as the dominate partner. At the half-hour mark they sunk into the sand, Toki sitting in Skwisgaar's lap, and Skwisgaar began to French kiss him, which was not something Toki was able to master in half an hour. He mostly tried to repeat what was done to him, but Skwisgaar did some masterful things with his tongue that Toki had no idea how to replicate, and eventually he succumbed. He found he liked to lick _at _Skwisgaar, licking his bottom lip, his top lip, and even around them, playful and curious. Skwisgaar encouraged this by parting his lips and leaving them motionless. He laughed into Toki's mouth a few times as Toki did his experimental licking, which only provoked Toki, and as a response he sucked Skwisgaar's bottom lip between his teeth. Skwisgaar pulled back from that and moved to mouthing at Toki's neck, tucking his hair behind his ear, moving around to the back of Toki's neck and pushing all of his hair over his shoulder. Toki appreciated this, for if he was to get a hickey, it'd be better to get one in a place where his parents would not see. Toki was rendered incapable of motion throughout the process; it was all he could do to stroke at Skwisgaar's skin under the neckline of his shirt and lick at the crevice between neck and shoulder occasionally, feeling dazed. Eventually Skwisgaar pulled back to kiss Toki again, gentler and slow this time, pulling Toki out of his dazed state and reminding him where he was and what he was doing. Toki sped and roughened it up until they were at a sufficient pace once more and when Skwisgaar went to start Frenching again, Toki nibbled at his lips, which escalated into a war that Toki was eager to fight. By the time the fireworks ended and they broke apart Toki's lips were swollen and numb, his hair a tangled mess, and he was hard as fuck, aching.

He batted his eyelids sleepily until he was able to keep them open and picked a lock of Skwisgaar's hair up between his fingers. "Hello," he said, smiling.

"Hellos," Skwisgaar said. His voice was breathy, as opposed to Toki's sleepy one.

"That was really cool," Toki said. He was still turning Skwisgaar's hair over in his fingers, still in Skwisgaar's lap; Skwisgaar had propped himself up on his elbows after Toki pulled away.

"Ja," Skwisgaar said. "See? I told yous. Yous ams a natural."

"Oh?" Toki said. He got off of Skwisgaar's lap, erection subsiding enough that he could stand. Skwisgaar followed him and held his hand before leaning down to give him the softest kiss of the night; it would be too exhausting to do anything else at that point, and even an insult to the past hour to try and reproduce it when neither of them were ready.

"Ja," Skwisgaar said again. He took Toki's other hands in his, face serious now, and he once again looked behind Toki instead of at him. "Toki. It woulds be a shame if I did not asks you dis after dat."

"What?" Toki asked. He cocked his head, still fuzzy from the kissing and full of half-wishes to lunge at Skwisgaar again.

"You ams going to make me says it?" Skwisgaar asked. Then, he groaned and turned his head, making eye contact with Toki. "I would likes it if you belongs to me and I belongs to you and nobody else. A relationships. I thinks in America they says, wills you be mine boyfriend?"

"Oh! Yes," Toki said. He leaned up to kiss Skwisgaar again, licking a little at his lips, if only to express his joy. "I am happy."

Skwisgaar chuckled a bit and then checked the time on his phone. "Shits. We needs to go."

Toki pouted and found himself unable to form words otherwise. They departed from the beach with its still water reflecting moonlight and white sand littered with debris, Toki sad to see it go, though he had the feeling he'd be back before long. He followed Skwisgaar through the winding path of downtown—there were even _more _people than before out now, but their features and the light and the noise blurred to Toki—and back to the festival grounds, which was deserted but still open for some unknown reason. Toki kissed Skwisgaar at the gate, having spent the last five minutes in silence just staring at his lips, and tried to go for more but found himself without the energy to. He was surprised by how much just that hour took out of him, like some sort of vampirism life source sucking-out process had occurred. He was still pretty high, too. Skwisgaar held his hand until they got to the front of the stage, where Toki saw his friends standing in a circle. Murderface had lost his jacket and was wearing a different shirt than before, something three sizes too small and pink; Nathan and Pickles were huddled in conversation, and Dick was nowhere to be found. Nathan noticed Toki and Skwisgaar first, as Pickles and Murderface were turned away from them, and Nathan tapped Pickles on the shoulder and pointed.

"Hey, guys," Pickles said. He bounced over to them, still energetic somehow. He was wearing sunglasses that pushed up his dreads, at midnight, for unknown reasons. "How was your date?"

"Amazing!" Skwisgaar released Toki's hand; he fell into Pickles. "He bought cherry condoms, he eats like a lady, we got high and he gave me a hickey, I think, you should check." He gestured to the back of his own neck.

Pickles moved aside Toki's hair. "Yep, there's a hickey," he said. Toki swayed out of his arms and stood beside him. Pickles shot Skwisgaar a look; Skwisgaar shrugged.

"It ams all true," he said. He walked over to Toki and took both of his hands, steadying him. "Looks, next weekend, meets me at de mall, de food court, Saturday, noon. Gots it?" Toki nodded; Skwisgaar let go of one of his hands and used a single finger to tilt his chin, giving him a soft, chaste kiss. "You gots it, at least," he said, looking at Pickles. Pickles nodded.

"Well, we have to get going," Pickles said. Skwisgaar nodded and let go of Toki's other hand; this time, Toki did not fall, but remained steady on his feet. The absence of physical contact made him sad, however. "I hope you had a good time, too."

"I has a great time. I ams seeingks him again, ams I not?" Skwisgaar said. "We ams together now. Sees you guys later." He waved at Nathan and Murderface and then took off; Toki watched him go, his elegant figure gliding away, until he disappeared into the night like so much of their smoke and thoughts. Yeah, he was definitely still high.

"Well, you're sloppy," Pickles said, looking at Toki. "We're barely gonna make Nathan's curfew, I hope you know." He put an arm around Toki, which was weird and wrong in comparison to Skwisgaar's presence across Toki's shoulder for some of the night, and began to walk in the direction of the nearest parking lot. Nathan and Murderface fell in step along beside him. "_And _Halloween is tomorrow. We need to get you to bed."

"What's with the shirt?" Toki asked, gesturing to Murderface. He was sleepy, sure, but he could walk, and he pushed Pickles's arm off of him.

"We'll exchange stories of our nights later," Pickles said. "You can sleep on the car ride home and maybe you'll sober up enough."

"'Kay," Toki said. The walk to Nathan's truck was brief, and Toki fell asleep immediately once he was sitting inside—he thought he saw Pickles rolling his eyes in annoyance and leaning back from the front seat to buckle Toki's seatbelt for him before he fell asleep. He woke to a similar sight, Pickles slapping his face as he undid his seatbelt, and stumbled out of the truck, to Nathan's house, up Nathan's stairs, and into Nathan's room before he curled up under the windowsill and fell asleep.

He slept dreamless and deeply, feeling rejuvenated when he woke up. His high had worn off but he was hungry, and happy, and _warm_—there was a blanket thrown across him, probably by Pickles, who was asleep in Nathan's bed against the wall, distinguishable only by the mop of dreads peeking from a mass of black comforter. Murderface was snoring in the computer chair and Nathan was nowhere to be found, but Toki heard water running in the upstairs bathroom, and he figured that that must be where Nathan was. Toki was not tired enough to go back to sleep so he crawled out from under the windowsill and stretched, basking in the morning light. He walked over to the computer and shook the mouse, carefully avoiding Murderface, still in his three-sizes-too-small hot-pink V-neck, to check the time. 12:30 P.M., shit; unsurprisingly, Murderface had been on a weapons dealer's website. Toki wondered what time the other guys passed out at as he went back over to sitting below the window sill.

Nathan reentered the room with a towel wrapped around his waist a few minutes later, unsurprised to see Toki up. "What time did you guys pass out at?" Toki asked as Nathan went over to retrieve clothes from his closet.

"Murderface was still online when Pickles and I went to sleep around three," Nathan said. He selected a black shirt and jeans from the closet, reaching in a cheap plastic set of drawers for a pair of boxers. "I woke up first, whoa."

"Yeah," Toki said. "Whoa." He ran a hand through his hair, which was knotted and surely a mess to look at. Considering what he was going as for Halloween, he decided to leave it that way. "Are we just going to let them sleep?"

Nathan shrugged. "Not much else to do." He exited the room with his clothes in hand. Toki listened to Nathan pad around upstairs, getting dressed, combing his hair, brushing his teeth, and then go downstairs, presumably to eat. After neither Pickles nor Murderface gave any inclination of waking up soon Toki picked himself up and headed to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth with the toothbrush he kept over at Nathan's house and rinsed his face off; his eyes were still a little red, but it worked with the day. He went downstairs and made himself a bowl of cereal, eating at the kitchen table alone and lost in thought. Mostly he allowed himself to remember the bliss of the previous night, particularly the hour he spent on their makeshift beach. He finished his cereal and felt productive enough to wash his own dishes for once. When he went back into Nathan's room he saw that Pickles had woken up and was propped against Nathan's headboard, texting somebody.

"Mornin' sunshine," Pickles said, looking from his phone towards Toki, his thumbs continuing to move. "When we gonna talk about last night, huh?"

Toki walked over to Nathan's bed and sat on it, swinging his legs up on it. "When you want to, I guess," he said, lounging on Nathan's mattress. It was not often that Toki got the luxury of being on Nathan's bed, and he reveled in it, for it was a fucking awesome bed.

Pickles put his phone down beside him. "Well, when you left, the guys and I decided to just wander around. We got gelato, too, Murderface made such a mess. Anyhow. That shit got boring fast so we went to Dick's and had an impromptu party. Murderface over there exchanged clothes with a stripper. Nathan got a lap dance. I got her sunglasses." Pickles gestured to the sunglasses on Nathan's bedside table. "After that, we went back to the festival grounds. Pretty average night. I showed you mine, now you show me yours." At this point Nathan reentered his room and went over to begin kicking Murderface awake. Murderface did not budge nor wake up, no matter how hard Nathan kicked his shins.

Toki put his hands on his belly and inhaled deeply, shutting his eyes and trying to remember. "You guys left, we hung out with his band for a couple minutes, he took me to Lilies, which was a sex shop—"

"Wait, hold up, _what_?" Pickles leaned in towards Toki, eyes wide and blinking rapidly. "He took you to a sex shop? I don't know if I like that. Do you like that, Nathan?" He looked over to Nathan.

Nathan stopped kicking Murderface momentarily. "No, I do not like that, Pickles." He returned to kicking Murderface and took the chair and swiveled it around; Murderface slept on.

Pickles, satisfied, leaned back again. "What type of a guy takes his first date to a fucking sex shop? Is this where he got the cherry condoms?"

"Yeah," Toki said. "We looked at dildos and played catch with ball gags." He patted his belly in a beat, avoiding Pickles's eyes.

Nathan chuckled and Pickles sent him a look; Nathan stopped chuckling. "Go on, Toki," Pickles said, returning his attention to Toki and his story and making a waving hand motion.

"Then we went to a fancy Italian restaurant, I think it was called Sergio's, he had veal and I had fettuccini alfredo Then we went to this little empty beach type thing and talked and smoked until the fireworks and we watched the fireworks and kissed and stuff." Toki faltered at the end and looked away from Pickles, face getting hot.

"Stuff," Pickles said, monotone. "Explain the stuff. I've seen your hickey, kid."

"God, Mom," Toki mumbled, certain that his face was red. He was looking intently at Nathan's sheets and the little ridges they made in their crumpled state. "We made out for, like, an hour. Oh, and he asked me out."

"You're such a girl," Nathan said. He'd stopped kicking Murderface, having given up, and was reclining against his computer desk, glaring at Murderface with his arms crossed.

"Well," Pickles said. His phone buzzed and he picked it up, resuming his texting. "You had a very interesting night. A _sex shop_. Oh, and Nathan, Charles said he's having a party tonight. I said we couldn't make it."

"It was cool," Toki said. He was still making eye contact with the sheets as opposed to Pickles. "I'd never been in one before."

Pickles sighed. "If you say so. Now, if you excuse me, I have to start prepping for Halloween." He climbed out of bed—Toki noticed at this point he was shirtless, though wearing jeans and socks—and walked by Murderface, poking him in the back of his neck with his fingernail. Murderface jerked awake, breathing heavy, and Nathan stared in wonder alternating between Murderface and Pickles, who sashayed out of the room and flicked his wrist, dismissing the awe of his actions.

Nathan, Murderface and Toki killed time before trick-or-treating, which would begin at six, by watching shitty scary movies in the basement. Murderface pretended not to be scared at the jump scares; Toki tracked the plots and reveled in the gore; Nathan enjoyed the gore alongside Toki and consumed the entire bowl of popcorn. Pickles killed the time by getting ready, which really did take him all day. Murderface never had to dress up for Halloween, being naturally scary in his normal attire, and Toki was going as a mental patient, so all he had to do was change into a pair of scrubs he'd splattered with red paint a couple weeks ago and smear some charcoal make-up under his eyes before they left for the evening. Nathan was going as a football player, meaning he had to change into his uniform, but Pickles took it one step above. He was going as a cheerleader, a proper girl cheerleader, with skirts and pom-poms and everything. So, at five-thirty, Nathan, Murderface, and Toki stood at the bottom of the stairs, tapping their feet, each in their appropriate dress, waiting for Pickles to emerge.

Pickles made a frighteningly good girl, with his naturally slender shape and slightly hourglass figure. He'd put his dreads in low pigtails, done his make-up but kept his weak attempt at facial hair, had pom-poms, a costume he'd ordered off of Amazon, tennis shoes and ruffled socks. He made a dramatic entrance, striking poses down the stairs, and congregated to Nathan to cling onto his arm and lift a leg up, dying of laughter. "This was a good idea," he said.

They stockpiled into Nathan's truck, Pickles placing his pom-poms on the console, and Nathan drove them to the richest neighborhood in town where the high school students generally hung out at Halloween. They trick-or-treated with cheap pillowcases and made a game out of who could scare the children the most—Murderface won just by existing, though kids looked at Pickles strangely and Pickles growled back, gnashing his teeth like a dog. They did not talk of the previous day, nor of Skwisgaar, nor of anything, really, as they went through the streets and knocked on doors. Some people turned them away, telling them they were too old, and they flicked them off and kicked their jack-o-lanterns in response. Nathan made out with some chick in a failed attempt at a vaguely offensive, appropriating Native American costume that was mostly just her barefoot and wearing scanty burlap; Pickles was mistaken for a girl, and subsequently hit on, three times, all by drunken guys similar in age to them. They ran into a couple people they knew—Rockzo and his crew being one of them, in their normal clothes and carrying candy in a baby carriage that Rockzo himself pushed, and Toki took extra caution to avoid being seen by Emmy—and made small-talk. At some point during the night he'd absentmindedly wiped his face with the back of his hand and smeared make-up everywhere, though it kind of just added to the mental patient effect, according to Pickles. Murderface disappeared at one point and returned with an armful of illegal foreign candy, mostly Kinder chocolate and gummies in weird shapes. Toki took a bag of road-kill gummies and deposited them in his pillowcase. They amassed a nice size of candy and cashed in early, needing time to go to Nathan's house and prepare themselves for going home and for school in the morning. Toki forced himself to shower at Nathan's house, and though he felt insecure and vulnerable through the ordeal he felt better afterwards, and Toki got dressed in Nathan's bathroom feeling pretty content with the world—he'd avoided a weekend with his parents, he**'**d spent some nice quality time with his friends, and, oh, he'd attained himself a boyfriend.


	6. Toki's Gay Porn Thing

I really like this chapter but I don't have a lot to say about it? It's summer now so I should be better about updating due to unlimited free time. Sorry about the delay, and my generally dismal update schedule for the past year. Which, wow, it's been almost a year since I started writing this. _Weird._

* * *

"You're different. Dunno if I like it."

It was Wednesday, and under the guise of working on a history project, Toki was sitting at Nathan's bedroom window (having dragged his computer chair over) and looking at the garden gnomes lining the side of Nathan's neighbor's house. The college boys next door appeared to collect them, a variety of lawn ornaments in a neat line disappearing into the backyard; throughout the years Toki had seen one of the guys that lived there place a new one down every few weeks or so. It was just Toki and Pickles in the room then, Murderface out with Dick and Nathan having left to get snacks. Nachos, particularly; everybody had been in a nachos sort of mood. Pickles was sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand holding a fist of comforter and the other the neck of a bottle of vodka, knotting his feet in the part of the comforter hanging over the bed.

Toki shrugged and put his elbow on the windowsill and head in his hand. It was still hot, the transition into November not helping in the slightest, but the window was open and a slight breeze wafted past. It felt like summer though it was fall and Toki quickly lost track of what Pickles had said to him as he swam in his thoughts, smiling to himself. He remained like that until he felt a hand on his shoulder and the smell of cheap alcohol infiltrated his happy haze. He turned his head to see Pickles taking a long swig from his bottle of vodka, remove it from his lips and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand before throwing the empty bottle out the window and tightening his grip on Toki. "Seriously, douchebag. It's been, what, four days? And we haven't had an actual conversation with you."

Toki shrugged once again and returned his head to his hand, twisting his hair around with the other. "I'm mirthful," he said. The slight breeze twisted down the street and Toki could practically see the airy swirls of its essence as he watched deadening leaves rustle. He sighed, not from an area of stress and strain but from one of comfort and complacency.

Pickles patted him on the shoulder. "What a word," he said. "What a wor_ld_." For a Wednesday afternoon Pickles was quite drunk. He had swept his dreadlocks into a ponytail behind his head and swaggered his way over to Nathan's closet, in which there was a mirror. He preened and patted his face, turned his head to look at his neck. "What if I got gauges," he said, tugging on an earlobe, "or a tattoo of Nathan's face on my ass. Right cheek." He smacked his ass, a hard sound reverberating throughout the room.

Toki made a vague hand motion and continued to look out the window. Two houses down the street an older-not elderly, but nearing retirement-couple was relaxing on their porch, the woman wearing a sun visor with a frilly drink in her hand, the man clad in sensible chinos and smoking a cigar. Toki wondered what the fuck they were doing, then let those thoughts disappear, feeling _happy _for these people instead. That was weird, even to him, and he crinkled his nose at himself.

"I think I'm going to jump out the window," Pickles said, continuing to preen in the mirror. He inspected his (stained, but otherwise okay) teeth. "Or maybe-_goddamit_ Toki, you are _not allowed _to stop being friends with us just because you're getting laid by some Swedish douchebag guitar god!" Pickles turned from the mirror and threw his arms in the air. His speech was slurred, words slanting into each other and accent thick, but he made his point.

"He is very good at guitar," Toki said. Pickles groaned. He crumpled to the ground where he stood and began to beat his head against the floor. Toki continued to look out the window.

Nathan made a timely entrance into the room, cradling an impressive plate of nachos in his arms. He set the plate in the middle of the floor and folded himself Indian-style on the ground beside it, taking a handful of chips and eating them. "I had my mom make them," he said through a mouthful of tortilla and gooey cheese.

"Sweet, she makes the best ones," Pickles said, picking himself up and flocking to the plate. He sat down opposite Nathan and scooped a hearty amount of nachos into his hands, exasperation of moments past evaporated. "Toki, will you at least come here and eat some nachos with us?" He asked before cramming said nachos into his mouth, cheese splattering around his lips. Pickles was a noisy eater normally, but when drunk he was outright obnoxious.

"What's wrong with Toki?" Nathan asked. He held a nacho above his mouth like a Greek deity feeding themselves grapes and slowly lowered it in.

"He's _mirthful_," Pickles said. He shook his head, his dreadlocked ponytail swinging across his back. He slurped the cheese up around his lips.

"I don't know what that means," Nathan said.

"Happy," Toki said from the window. A bird had landed in a tree in Nathan's backyard and Toki had become mesmerized by it. It was just a pigeon, gray and with a small, squat body, hopping from branch to branch in search of something. Toki had named the bird Joy, mentally, and so he continued to watch Joy bounce around branches. "It means I'm happy."

"What's wrong with that?" Nathan asked, leaning in for another large scoop of nachos at the same time as Pickles.

"He's not talking," Pickles said. They met eyes over the plate of nachos.

"He just did." Nathan cocked his head and retreated from the plate with chips and cheese between his fingers and in his palms. Pickles sighed-definitely from a place of strain and stress-and grabbed some for himself.

"I mean-fuck it, these nachos are great." Pickles said.

Toki turned from the window to look at his friends. The picture of Nathan and Pickles he saw was one of total self-indulgence. Half the plate of nachos was gone, a quarter each in Nathan and Pickles's greedy stomachs, and they were relaxed in such ways-Nathan with his legs crossed, Pickles with them splayed to the side and propping himself up on his elbows-that they looked like kings, gods, noble figures, men of status and privilege, lazy rich guys, whatever. Toki felt above them, his happiness stemming from a place of a deeper meaning and understanding, but he still fled his chair to skid to his knees before the plate of nachos and began to eat some. He ate them directly out of his own hands. Nathan's mother truly did make them the best, after all.

After they finished the plate Nathan's parents left to run an errand and Pickles stumbled downstairs in search of more booze. Nathan looked at Toki, picked up the barren plate of nachos, said, "I better go make sure he doesn't fall and kill himself or something," and left after Pickles. Toki fell to his back on Nathan's floor and looked at the ceiling, eyes lidded in fullness and bliss, a natural high. He held his hand before him and turned it over, examining it, thinking about all the things this hand had touched, will touched, had done, will do. He felt poetic. He also felt vaguely horny, more so than the usual nag at the back of his mind reminding him that he is in his most virile and fertile years. Looking at his hand, thinking about his dick-he had an idea.

He crept out of Nathan's room and peered downstairs. Pickles and Nathan were not in the kitchen as far as he could see, but a cabinet was open, which meant that they had found Pickles some more booze and were elsewhere doing other things. Toki smiled and rushed back to Nathan's room, shutting the door behind him. He went to the window and dragged the computer chair back to the computer, sat in the chair, and shook the mouse to wake the computer up.

Toki did not get the chance to masturbate, or jack off, or jerk off, or whatever the fuck they felt like calling it that day, often. Or at all, really. Sometimes, if things were particularly bad, he would risk it in the shower at home, and he'd done it a few times at Nathan's already (and was pretty sure everybody in their group had regardless) so he did not feel weird about what he was about to do. Well, he did, but not because it was at Nathan's house. Toki didn't watch porn. Not because he didn't _want _to, but because he didn't get the _opportunity. _He couldn't do it at home, didn't know where to find it, and didn't even know what the fuck he was into. When he _did _get the chance to jack off, he normally returned to the memory of that pretty girl from church's pretty mouth formed around a song, and it got him off pretty well. Today, though, he had a mission.

He opened up Nathan's internet browser of choice and went to Google. In the search bar he typed _gay porn, _which was enough to excite him further and also fill him with trepidation. He clicked on the first result: a website called gaytube. Convenient. Once on the homepage of gaytube he found a video that seemed appealing,_ Straight Skaters Jerk Off. _Relatable, at least in the fact that he was also a skater currently jerking off, and not too extreme. He didn't think he was ready for anything more, at this point. He relaxed in his chair, unbuttoned the top of his jeans and snuck a hand into his boxers, fully erect at that point from the idea of the situation alone. He had left the window open, though he didn't think anyone would be able to see him.

The video was two minutes and thirty-four seconds long and at the minute mark he could feel himself getting close, the rising feeling, the build-up, and he bit hard enough into his lip to draw blood (which, to be honest, only managed to escalate the pleasure he was feeling), and he was just _so, so fucking close _when the door to Nathan's room swung open. Toki froze mid-stroke and did not dare ot turn around or even move, the video rolling on in front of him, switching between shots of a myriad of boys in a similar position as Toki, whose dick was still in his hand and still hard.

"Um..Toki?" That was Pickles's voice, but he could practically hear the silence of Nathan, and felt a fourth presence in the room. He really hoped that was Murderface, or a ghost, or even Charles, and not one of Nathan's parents.

Toki's prayers were answered when the fourth presence yelled, "What the _fuck? _What schort of welcome isch _thisch_?" The sound of Murderface's lisp completely wilted Toki's cock and he finally got the sense to take his hand away and tuck himself back into his boxers, pull his jeans up and zip and button them. His face was hot and red and not in the good way it had been just mere seconds ago. He licked the blood from his lips, running his tongue over the sensitive sore and pressing hard in a futile attempt to make it stop bleeding. In front of him the video was almost done. He could barely stand to look at it, but it didn't occur to him to turn it off until Nathan cleared his throat.

Toki closed out of the window and folded his hands in his lap, head cast downward and hair covering his face. His back was towards the other guys, who hadn't moved, collected in the doorway, and Toki wasn't about to, either. The only sound in the room was Murderface's sputtering of half-formed words, accusations, and insults.

"Uh, Murderface, I think you're actually_ too _freaked out by this," Nathan said, finally cutting the silence.

Pickles laughed. "Gotta agree," he said, and Toki heard his approaching footsteps, then felt his hand clasp his back. Toki flinched and Pickles took his hand away. "We all knew Toki here was gay. We've met his boyfriend. Fuck, we've seen 'em kiss. Anyways. Raise your hand if you _haven't _jacked off exactly where Toki is sittin' right now." There was not the sound of somebody's hand being raised, and Toki felt disgusted when Pickles put it that way. "See? Toki's just the first one to get caught. This is funny. This is a funny situation. Laugh, you douchebags." And they did; Nathan and Pickles's genuine, Murderface's nervous, and Toki even began to giggle. It was sort of funny. He guessed. He raised his head and looked at Pickles, meeting eyes and smiling.

Pickles pulled Toki out of the chair with his free hand-there was another bottle of vodka in the other one-and enveloped him in a hug. "Sorry you didn't get to cum," he said, so seriously that Toki burst out laughing.

In comparison, the rest of the week proved uneventful. Toki went skating with Murderface on Thursday, but Murderface bought along Dick and ignored Toki the entire time. Murderface acted sort of weird around Toki following what became known as Toki's gay porn thing, not talking to him nearly as much as before, which didn't bother Toki too greatly. He continued to do mounds of meaningless chores but received no particularly ruthless punishment. His parents were under the impression that he was working on a history project worth his semester grade in the class (which was very much not true), so he was able to escape to Nathan's house for the week and also on Saturday, when his second date with Skwisgaar was scheduled for the mall at noon. Nathan and Pickles accompanied Toki, Murderface away at some family reunion thing for the day, and Toki bounced with anticipation the entire ride there. Nathan was engrossed with driving and Pickles with telling Nathan about Charles and Abigail's shared suspicious actions, including but not limited to their lack of interaction with him. Nathan reported that Charles had been talking to him considerably less and Abigail not at all, unsurprisingly.

They were late by fifteen minutes but Skwisgaar was nowhere to be seen either. Pickles and Toki sat down at a table in the food court while Nathan went to one of the eateries, a Chinese place of dubious quality that he was into, and waited. Toki's spirits were dropping fast, certain that Skwisgaar had stood him up. Pickles had already launched into a comforting mode, ready to begin calling Skwisgaar a douchebag and telling Toki he deserved better at any moment. But just as Nathan was returning with a tray ladened with fifteen bucks worth of weird quasi-Chinese food, Skwisgaar strolled through the mall door.

Pickles sighed; Toki's pulse picked up. Skwisgaar, glorious as ever, gliding towards him, dressed in all clothes that glowed under fluorescent lighting, along with his hair and skin and eyes, and Toki was mirthful, enamored, dumbstruck, lovestruck, in awe. Pickle's sigh escalated into a groan when Skwisgaar came to their table and took one of Toki's hand in his, bowing and kissing it. He lifted his chin just the slightest from the back of Toki's hand, skirting his eyes upward to meet Toki's. Toki suppressed a yelp by bringing the knuckles of his free hand to his lips; Pickles made a noise with his throat; Nathan had stopped eating.

"Hellos," Skwisgaar said, straightening himself up. He stood at his full height with his immaculate posture, making it hard on Toki's knees as he, himself, stood. Skwisgaar took Toki's hand in his, looking Nathan and Pickles dead in the eyes.

"So, uh," Nathan said, spearing a piece of orange chicken with his plastic fork. He bought it to his mouth slowly, opting to make eye contact with the food rather than Skwisgaar.

"We'll meet you back here in three hours," Pickles said, standing up himself and putting his hands on his hips. His eyes were narrowed, focused on Skwisgaar and Toki's entwined fingers. "Right here. This exact table."

"Okay, Mom," Toki said. Skwisgaar-and Nathan, silently and to himself-laughed. Pickles narrowed his eyes even further, lowering himself back into his seat. He maintained his menacing visage as he groped around Nathan's plate of Chinese food. He found an egg roll and took it, taking a large bite of it, all while staring. Skwisgaar and Toki turned and walked away from Nathan and Pickles, erupting into laughter as soon as they were out of earshot.

"What ams you wantingks to does?" Skwisgaar asked Toki. Skwisgaar turned to look at Toki while he talked; Toki was swinging their interlocked hands between them back and forth with force.

"I don't know," Toki said. They reached the center of the mall from which four spines extended; they had just come from the one that led to the food court. At the end of each spine there were large department stores and means of getting to the second floor of the mall. Along the way smaller shops, kiosks, boutiques and eateries. It was all the same to Toki; they came to the mall often enough, oftentimes sitting on the steps behind it where people rarely came to get stoned then cause ruckus within the mall. He had some goods time in this mall indeed, and had high expectations for this date. "Walks around, I guesses."

"Walks around it ams," Skwisgaar said, and they walked straight, curving their path around the large, ornate fountain in the center spewing water towards the gap in the second floor. "You knows, I ams been livingks here for months, and I has not comes here before."

"Really?" Toki said, looking at Skwisgaar in surprise. "Me and the guys, we comes here often." He had not yet noticed his English skills slipping, nor his accent coming out more fully.

"Ja," Skwisgaar said. He paused and looked to his left; there was a music store. He began to stride towards it, dragging Toki along with him. "I lives near heres, too. Dat's why I choose here for dis date." They crossed the threshold into the store and Skwisgaar immediately went for the back, along which there were posters, guitars, and novelty items for various things likes popular movies and television shows. Toki knew the store well. It was one of his and the other's more frequent haunts.

"Oh, well, I moved here when I was in the sixth grades," Toki said. He watched Skwisgaar flip through a stack of guitar magazines, occasionally scoffing at those who graced the cover. Toki recognized some of them due to Nathan and Pickles's interests in music, but had no opinions of his own to offer. "That was when I met the guys, too. They likes to come to the mall. I likes to have friends."

"Whys did you leaves Norway again?" Skwisgaar now steered Toki towards the actual music. Skwisgaar went for the metal section, which made Toki deeply happy and proud, for he knew more about metal than the average person and was glad that Skwisgaar was into it, too. Perhaps he would be able to find common ground with Toki's friends after all. Skwisgaar immediately started going through the Norwegian black metal section (which was suitably extensive) rather nonchalantly.

"My father was involved in a religion and had to move here for church stuffs, you know that. We still go every Sunday and sometimes my father is the preacher. I don't believes in any of it." Toki reached over and plucked a CD out of the bin, recognizing a band. He examined it, flipping it over in his free hand to read the back.

"Ah, I also am not believingks in anythings. I am a nihilist, as you knows." Skwisgaar sounded smug. He turned away from the CD selection and towards Toki, then took the album Toki had in his hands to examine it. "I knows dis band," he said, flipping it over for himself. "I saw dem on tours in Sweden."

"How was it?" Toki asked. He looked up at Skwisgaar, yet again impressed with him. Skwisgaar put the CD back in its bin and Toki grabbed his other hand, then leaned up to kiss him. They were side-eyed by an old woman perusing country music; Skwisgaar flicked his head at her. Toki withdrew and licked his lips, inwardly giddy at the first kiss of the day.

"It was okays," Skwisgaar said. He let go of one of Toki's hands and led him towards the guitars. "All of these guitars sucks," he said, running his fingers over the body of a zebra-print acoustic. "Cheaps piece of craps."

"I don't know a lot about guitars," Toki confessed, though he offhandedly liked the look of one of the electric ones, a gleaming gray in color.

"Guitars ams pretty much all I knows about," Skwisgaar said, serious in tone. He continued to explore and poke around the store, never staying anywhere for too long, and ended up not buying anything in the end. Toki hadn't expected him to. They left the store and continued to make their way down the mall hand-in-hand, passing mostly store branches that pandered to teenage girls. The mall was decently busy, it being a Saturday afternoon, and Toki saw a variety of people. None stood out to him. He preferred to pass the time looking at Skwisgaar's profile and standing with his back straight, proud of himself and wanting to show off.

Five minutes down the way there was a candy store that Toki immediately turned for, this time dragging Skwisgaar. "I loves candy," Toki sighed. Skwisgaar arched his eyebrows but said nothing as Toki began to look through the stacks and racks of various candy. The store arranged its candy by color, a rainbow wrapping around the faux wood walls. Toki revelled in its aesthetics.

While Toki was looking at black licorice, Skwisgaar picked up a small box. "Chocolate dipped cockoroaches?" He said, curling his lip and cocking his head.

Toki peered over at them and shrugged. "I don't know, I've never ates them," he said. He took the box from Skwisgaar's hand and looked at it closer. It was black in color, slimy green lets announcing its innards: _World's Finest Chocolate Dipped Cockroaches._ A disclaimer read that there were, indeed, real cockroaches inside, dipped in the world's finest European milk chocolate.

"Does you want to try them?" Skwisgaar asked. He was looking between the box and Toki, skeptical and slightly repulsed.

"Does you?" Toki made eye contact with Skwisgaar, asking him with his eyes as well.

"You knows what, I makes a deal," Skwisgaar said. "I buys them, we sees who ams able to eats de most of them." He took the box back from Toki and walked towards the cash register. Toki intensified his pace to keep up.

"Like a bet," Toki said as Skwisgaar paid three dollars for the box, which said that there were ten of the bugs inside. Skwisgaar nodded. "What does the winner get?"

"Whatever they wants," Skwisgaar said, shaking his head when the lady working the register asked if he wanted a bag for it. Skwisgaar led Toki away from the candy store, which made him a little sad, and towards one of the wooden benches in the center of the walkway outside. They sat down and Skwisgaar took his hand away from Toki's to open the box of cockroaches. Skwisgaar looked uncomfortable as he pulled a plastic container from the box. Inside were individually wrapped chocolate-dipped cockroaches.

Toki took one and unwrapped it, never a timid eater. Skwisgaar mirrored him but more slowly. "On three?" Toki asked, holding the candy near his mouth. It smelled like chocolate, at least. Skwisgaar nodded. Toki counted to three and then plopped the thing inside his mouth; Skwisgaar bit off the head. Toki chewed, unable to come to a decision as to whether or not he liked it; the chocolate was very good, but the texture was weirdly crunchy, and what he guessed was the cockroach itself had a strange, almost bitter flavor that he wasn't necessarily opposed to. Skwisgaar immediately spit his back out into the wrapper and scraped at his tongue with his hands.

"Disgustingks!" he said. He put the box beside him and went to throw his decapitated cockroach away in a nearby trash can. He returned to stand in front of Toki, hands on his hips.

Toki swallowed his, looked up at Skwisgaar and smiled. "I win," he said, standing up.

"Does you-you likes them?" Skwisgaar said. He was eyeing the box as if the cockroaches were going to fly into his mouth and force themselves down his throat, face contoured in utter repulsion.

"They were okay," Toki said. He put his hands over Skwisgaar's on his hips and kissed him fully, opening Skwisgaar's mouth with his tongue and sliding it against his. Skwisgaar recoiled from the kiss and turned his head; Toki guessed he tasted like cockroach, and was finding the whole situation utterly hilarious. He kissed Skwisgaar's cheek and let go of his hands.

Skwisgaar just scoffed and took Toki's hand in his, guiding them away from the bench and subsequently the chocolate dipped cockroaches. "Leaves it for de next peoples," he said, when Toki asked him about the candy they were leaving behind.

"Maybe they'll like them," Toki said. They were now ascending an escalator to the second floor, Toki a step above Skwisgaar and facing towards him instead of ahead.

"If dey ams crazies," Skwisgaar said. He pulled another face of utter repugnance. He placed an arm on Toki's forearm and then said, "Watches your step," when they were near the top. Toki turned around and exited the escalator properly, enjoying the hand Skwisgaar placed on the small of Toki's back to guide him. Toki returned the favor by tugging on Skwisgaar's wrist as he walked off the escalator. Toki was thoroughly enjoying himself, much more than he usually did at the mall, and he felt like a proper teenager for once in his life: free yet carefree, _mirthful_.

They went into the department store at this end of the mall via the second floor entrance. They wandered through aisles of makeup and purses until they found the men's section. The clothing was expensive and not matching either of their tastes-while polo shirts and khakis hung on the walls, Skwisgaar was in a way oversized black-and-white flannel and tattered jeans and Toki in a thin black HUF hoodie and cargo shorts-but Skwisgaar seemed to have a purpose. This section of the store was empty of people besides themselves and Skwisgaar led Toki through a maze of clothes into the fitting rooms. Toki was beginning to get an idea of why they were in here.

They went into one towards the back; these fitting rooms locked from the inside, requiring no store employee, and had heavy doors that went from ceiling to floor. Overall, they were perfect, and before he knew it Toki was inside of one, back against the slick tile wall, Skwisgaar's fingers pulling aside his hair and his mouth on his neck. Toki was gasping, but not in an unpleasant way, more in a generally pleased way. His arms scrambled for a second before he knotted both of his hands into Skwisgaar's hair and yanked and twisted it around his hands. Skwisgaar's hair was soft and thick and his mouth was hot and wet on Toki's neck; Toki was pretty much in bliss. They stayed like this long enough for a large hickey to come to surface on the juncture between Toki's shoulder and neck and then Skwisgaar pulled away, cupping Toki's face in both of his hands. His lips were wet with his own saliva and Toki leaned in to lick them, but Skwisgaar pulled back again just as Toki's tongue grazed his bottom lip.

Toki whined. Skwisgaar chuckled. "You wons de bet," he said, and it was quite possibly the most seductive thing Toki had ever heard. "What ams you goingks to be doingks?"

Toki thought for a moment. He considered saving his winnings in case he ever needed them, then thought about the situation at hand and dismissed the idea of saving them as utterly stupid. In his thinking he stuck his tongue between his lips. He rolled through recent memories and urges for a few seconds before something clicked inside. "I has an idea, but you can say no if you want to."

"Okay, I probably won'ts, but okay," Skwisgaar said. He put his forehead against Toki and moved his hands back so that they were under Toki's ears and knotted in Toki's hair. "What ams it?"

"I wants to bite you," Toki said, chest heaving with nerves and arousal. His skin was flushed and he was hot. Skwisgaar's body curving against his own did not help, but Toki wasn't about to complain. He liked the heat, liked the feeling of his heart going haywire.

Skwisgaar's face remained relaxed. "Dat's not dat extremes," Skwisgaar said. He sounded curious and moved his head to the side, forehead rolling along Toki's own. Toki was struck for a second by how beautiful he was, then regained himself.

"On de mouth. And-" Toki swallowed, making hardcore eye contact with Skwisgaar, begging him not to throw him out in disgust like he was a chocolate dipped cockroach. "Makes you bleed."

There was a beat. A momentary pause. The world stopped. Then, Skwisgaar said, quiet and slow, "My gods, does it," pupils fat and boring into Toki's eyes. Skwisgaar straightened his head and pulled back, leaving enough space between them. Toki nodded and leaned into Skwisgaar, moving his mouth towards his as he tipped his head back, and took Skwisgaar's bottom lip between his teeth. Toki bit down. He did it gradually at first, teasing, and then very hard all at once; he shivered when he tasted coppery blood. They were both into it-they went back to regularly kissing as Skwisgaar continued to bleed, his blood passing between their mouths. They were pressed chest-to-chest, melding and melting into the other. Skwisgaar took both of Toki's hands and pinned them to the wall with one of his, pressing his thumb hard into Toki's wrists, and in return Toki bit Skwisgaar again then pulled back. He smiled, blood on his teeth and around his mouth, and watched blood trickle down Skwisgaar's chin, slowly. Toki was more than a little hard.

"Dat was worth it," Toki said, chest still visibly heaving. Skwisgaar let go of his hands and Toki lowered them to his side, pushing his hoodie down while he was at it; Skwisgaar had been running the fingers of his other hand around Toki's naval. Toki waited for Skwisgaar to step back, but he didn't; instead, he looked at Toki, eyes deep. Toki raised his hand to Skwisgaar's mouth and placed his middle finger on his bleeding lip, then ran it down, down Skwisgaar's neck and over his Adam's apple, down to his chest, where Toki placed his entire hand, lightly. They went back to intensely making out at that point. By the end Skwisgaar's lip had stopped bleeding but his blood had gotten in several places on their respective faces and necks, dried rusty spots dotting their skin. They both had hands up the other's shirt, both of Toki's palms pressing into Skwisgaar's chest, one of Skwisgaar's around Toki's shoulder while the other was on his side, both under his hoodie.

"We has to stop sometimes," Toki said as Skwisgaar mouthed Toki's ear. If not because they wasted almost an hour making out, because Toki's balls were seriously starting to ache, heavy to the point of uncomfort. He unwillingly moaned as Skwisgaar once more moved his lips to that sensitive spot behind his left ear.

"I guesses you ams right," Skwisgaar said. Toki still felt lonely when Skwisgaar lifted himself off, though. Toki surveyed Skwisgaar-hair disheveled, pupils dilated, blood everywhere-and took his hands out from under his shirt. He then looked at himself in the mirror and found himself to be pretty much in the same state. He tried the best he could to readjust his hair and clothes while Skwisgaar coped his actions, sneaking looks at each other in the mirror. They both wiped as much blood off of themselves and the other as they could.

"Let's go to the bathroom," Toki said as they exited the fitting room. The menswear section of the department store was still deserted, luckily, and a bathroom was located not too far away from the fitting rooms. There was nobody in there either and they washed the blood off themselves and each other with soapy paper towels, occasionally sharing a deep tongue kiss or a chaste one at the corner of the mouth, Toki silly with happiness at that point. They exited the bathroom hand-in-hand once more, then the department store, and began to wander around.

"What time is it?" Toki asked as they left the department store. He was swinging their hands with force again and humming to himself; Skwisgaar was tolerating it. Skwisgaar pulled his phone, which Toki took note to be a shitty twenty-dollar flip phone, from his back pocket, and checked the time.

"We has an hours left," Skwisgaar said, putting the phone back in his pocket. He frowned. "Not enoughs times."

"I was just gonna hang out with Nathan, Pickle, and Moidaface after this," Toki said. He pointed at a smoothie stand in the middle of the mall and looked at Skwisgaar; Skwisgaar nodded, and they went towards the smoothies. "You can come with us."

"Your friends will not minds?" Skwisgaar asked as they slid into the smoothie stand line. There were two people in front of them, boring twenty-somethings that Toki took no interest in beside impatience for their presence to cease. "They ams not seemingks to likes me."

"They always bring along _their _friends," Toki said. He furrowed his brow and puffed out his lower lip, pouting"But they don't let me bring Rockzo to anything! He's my lab partner in Chemistry class and my friend,," he added as explanation. "But you, you ams my boyfriend! If Moidaface can bring Dick, I can bring you." He went to cross his arms over his chest, then remembered he was holding hands with Skwisgaar, and instead stomped one of his feet.

"Dick ams that producer guy, right?" Skwisgaar asked. One twenty-something departed from the line, smoothie in tow, and they shuffled forward.

Toki nodded. He read the board advertising the smoothies and found it hard to pick one. They all sounded delicious, and he knew them to be scrumptious due to past experience. It was a hard decision; he stuck his tongue between as he contemplated his choices.

"His name fits him," Skwisgaar said. Toki laughed. He bit his tongue in the process and yelped; Skwisgaar laughed harder.

The other person in line exited with their respective smoothie, and it was Toki's turn to order. Unable to decide what he wanted, picked at random. Five minutes later he was sitting on yet another bench, this time with one hand flat on the bench and Skwisgaar's over it, fingers woven together, and a large strawberry mango smoothie in the other, straw between his lips. Skwisgaar had gotten himself a bottle of water and drank it demurely. Toki sucked his smoothie with strength; this caught Skwisgaar's eye, and he chucklee.

Toki pulled the smoothie away from his lips. "What?" He asked, genuinely confused. His hand twitched underneath Skwisgaar's and they repositioned their hands slightly, subconsciously. That was weird and new to Toki, the way two bodies automatically adjust to fit each other. There were some things he realized people were ignorant to before entering a relationship with another person, and that was one of them.

"I thinks you ams goingks to be good at de blowjobs," Skwisgaar said. Toki looked away, at his smoothie, and felt something drain inside of him. "Whats wrong, little Toki? Oh, I forgets you ams so innocent." Skwisgaar tried to restrain himself from laughing, but he still managed to, accenting the last few syllables of his sentence with the sound. He continued to laugh as he continued to talk. "It ams my goal to changes that."

"I'm less innocent than you think," Toki said. It was difficult for him to discuss such subjects brazenly, but he made the decision to soldier on. To be a man

"Prove it." Skwisgaar leaned it close to Toki and said this against his ear, as breathy as he could manage it. He placed a kiss on that sensitive spot behind Toki's ear and then bit-not nibbled, _bit_-Toki's earlobe. Toki flushed again, this time straight to his dick, and drank some more of his smoothie to distract himself.

"Okay," Toki said, placing his smoothie beside him on the bench and rubbing his hands on his knees. They weren't exposed; his cargo shorts covered them even when he sat down. That made him feel more protected. "This Wednesday, Nathan, Pickle, and Moidaface caught me jerking off. To other guys jerking off." He looked Skwisgaar dead in the eyes, serious as he could make himself.

Skwisgaar snatched his hand away from Toki and clutched his stomach, doubling over as he was laughing so hard. Toki huffed and drank some more of his smoothie as angrily as he could, but that only made Skwisgaar laugh harder. Had Toki not been so offended or so involved in his smoothie he might've seen the humor and laughed himself, but he _was _offended, and the smoothie was divine. Skwisgaar eventually unfolded himself and replaced his hand, this time properly holding Toki's, and looked at him. "Oh, Tokis," he said. He placed a hand on his cheek. "Min pojkvän. I has slept with so many peoples I lose counts."

This didn't make Toki jealous; he expected that much, and was sort of glad. Somebody experienced could teach him, guide him. Still, he harrumphed. "I haven't had the chance to not be innocent, kjæresten min." He sucked up more of his smoothie; it was almost gone.

"You will has de chance," Skwisgaar said. Having not removed the hand on his cheek, he stroked his thumb over Toki's cheekbone. "Hopefully it ams goingks to be soon, but I ams willingks to take things slowly. I ams tryingks to done things right once time."

Toki placed a hand over Skwisgaar's on his cheek. "Thanks you," he said, running his own thumb over the veins of the back of Skwisgaar's hand. He had such lovely guitar player's hands; Toki was nearing obsession with them. "I don't know a lot about, um, sex. Or anything. I guess." He took his hand away, looked at the floor, and drank the last of his smoothie. He was sad to have it gone, both the smoothie and a reliable means of distraction.

"Well, like in de guitars, I ams de master," Skwisgaar said. He leaned in and kissed Toki; when he took his lips away Toki rubbed their noses together, and Skwisgaar smiled in spite of himself. "Secks, ad seckuals things, dey ams fun. Especially with another peoples. Much more funs than by yousself." He placed an arm around the bench behind Toki, turning his body towards him. Toki mirrored the action, placing one hand on Skwisgaar's knee as Skwisgaar held the other.

"If you says so," Toki said. "I'll take your word for it. I didn't know I was into guys until a few weeks ago," he said, sighing. "I never thought about it."

"Me eithers," Skwisgaar said. He shrugged. "I fucks who I fucks. It ams not dat big of a deal, little Tokis." He was sincere and for that Toki was grateful; for his existence, Toki was grateful. He looked at Skwisgaar looking at him, at their tangled mess of limbs, at the sores on his lips where he'd bitten them and shared their blood, and he felt something inside of his chest give out. He felt whatever had been blocking something break, and that _something _flood him from above him to below him. It was not love yet not infatuation, somewhere in between. Fondness. In Norwegian, forelsket.

Toki smiled at Skwisgaar, who smiled back, the corner of his eyes crinkling. He could feel Skwisgaar feeling it too, could feel it in his bones, living inside of him. "What ams it like?" He asked. He wasn't sure what _it _was supposed to be, exactly, as he was curious to it all-to Skwisgaar-but hoped Skwisgaar would interpret _it_ in his own way.

"Sometimes-most of de times-it was ams lonely," Skwisgaar said. He sighed; Toki watched the rise and fall of his chest, the gentle stir of his hair, the way his eyelids fluttered, the fine blond eyelashes. Forelsket. "But that ams behind me now," Skwisgaar said, and his eyes popped opened, a grin forming on his face. He pulled out his phone and checked the time. "Come, Toki, we has only a hour-half left." He stood up and pulled Toki from the bench with both hands.

Skwisgaar stumbled backwards as he pulled Toki forwards, and they smiled at each other and chuckled. Toki wanted people to see him and be jealous of him, for his blithe bliss, for the perfect person in his company. He felt jealous of himself, even, fortuitous almost to the point of disbelief. He felt himself beginning to understand the point of living, the inherent yet hidden supreme vivacity to these strange and at time troublesome twilight teenage years. He was gradually yet undoubtedly ascending into a nirvana of gratifaction. He began to comprehend why they portrayed the stage he had previously found so addled and awkward as a period of unspoiled pleasure in the media; it was possible to attain, and here he was, on the path to attainment.

The walk to the food court felt much shorter than the one that took them away from it, maybe because Toki was dreading getting back, or maybe because they had made so many stops on the original one. He held Skwisgaar's hand tight and they talked of various subjects, including but not limited to, bananas, Eurovision and men who paint their nails. They went to the table where Skwisgaar had picked Toki up and sat across from each other, holding hands over the table, both of their heads laying on the tabletop-Skwisgaar on his chin, Toki on his cheek-and looking at each other. They ran their thumbs over each other's hands and talked, then sat up straight and released each other when Nathan and Pickles returned, Nathan carrying a bag from the music store and Pickles eating a cinnamon bun, a cheap-looking kitty-ear headband in his dreads. Skwisgaar looked at Toki and arched a single eyebrow; Toki put a fist over his mouth to keep from laughing.

"Hey, guys," Toki said. Nathan and Pickles sat down, Nathan beside Skwisgaar and Pickles beside Toki. "I was wondering-um-what are we doing after this?" His accent was richer than usual, but he focused on his English, having noticed its tendency to slip when around Skwisgaar. Nathan and Pickles didn't seem to notice any change.

"Party at Charles's," Nathan said. Pickles seemed to be making a point by silently eating his cinnamon bun. Skwisgaar picked up on this and grabbed Toki's hand on top of the table, the action dripping with deliberation.

"I think it'd be really neat and cool if Skwisgaar came along with us," Toki said, his voice wobbling. He looked at Skwisgaar, who nodded his head, encouraging him. "Yeah. It would be really neat and cool."

"Yeah, okay, I guess that'd be cool with me," Nathan said. He put his shopping bag on the table and looked at Pickles. "Are you cool with it, Pickles?"

Pickles lowered the cinnamon bun, which he was almost done with, and slowly rotated his head to look at Skwisgaar. He narrowed his eyes again and said, "I dunno."

"You..doesn't knows?" Skwisgaar said. He tightened his hold on Toki's hand to the point it almost hurt and one of Toki's fingers cracked.

"I dunno you," Pickles explained. He took another bite of his cinnamon bun and chewed it before continuing. "You could try and steal from Charles, or murder a whore."

"Ams dere goingks to be whores?" Skwisgaar sounded more amused than anything, playing into Pickles's game. Toki hadn't the slightest idea what the fuck was up with Pickles, but he was enjoying the way Skwisgaar dealt with it.

"Aw, come on, Pickle," Toki pleaded. He placed a hand on Pickles's shoulder and forced Pickles to look him in the eyes, trying to telepathically communicate just how much he wanted this. When that seemed not to work he did it verbally. "You guys _always _bring along people, and Murderface ams-is-stuck to Dick!" (At this, Nathan and Skwisgaar shared a chuckle.)

Pickles took the last bite of his cinnamon bun, left to throw away the wrapper, then returned. He did not sit down, but instead took stock of the three of them with his hands flat on the table, shoulders rolled forward, then opened his mouth to speak. "Charles's party doesn't start until seven, so I guess we can hang at Nathan's until then. Murderface and Dick are meeting us at Nathan's house in an hour. Let's go."

"All of us?" Toki asked, hopeful. He took his hand away from Skwisgaar to form it into a begging position in his chest, pulling his best puppy dog face. Skwisgaar leaned back in his chair and looked judgingly at Toki.

"Yes, all of us. C'mon, Nathan." Pickles turned around and exited the foodcourt; Nathan took his bag and stood up himself. He flicked his hair out of his face and sighed in an exaggerated fashion.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with him," he said to Toki and Skwisgaar, as quietly as he could, looking towards the door to make sure Pickles was not present and could not hear him.

Skwisgaar and Toki exchanged a look, shrugged, and stood up themselves. They followed Nathan to the parking lot hand-in-hand; this time Toki did not swing them with force. Skwisgaar opened the door to Nathan's truck for Toki and then let himself in on the other side, behind Pickles. They did not hold hands in the backseat of Nathan's truck, Skwisgaar's arms folded over his chest as he looked out the window. Toki let his arms rest as his side and spent the ride looking at Skwisgaar's long legs and the way he sat with them splayed opened, no seatbelt on. He was glad that he now had the permission to openly gawk at Skwisgaar, for he was truly a gorgeous specimen.

They arrived at Nathan's house no problem and immediately went to Nathan's room. His parents weren't home, so nobody questioned Skwisgaar's presence. Skwisgaar and Toki hung back from Nathan and Pickles and hold hands, goosing each other on the stairs as they walked up them. Skwisgaar did not seem too impressed by Nathan's house after his initial head-turning survey, and Toki was delighted, as Skwisgaar's attention was directly focused on him. They entered Nathan's room and Toki went to the window immediately, sitting below it. Pickles was on Nathan's bed, already smoking a joint, and Nathan was busy putting away his new CDs and records into his extensive, alphabetically organized collection in his closet.

"What de fucks ams with all dese garden gnomes," Skwisgaar said, looking out the window, both hands curled around the edge. Toki tugged on Skwisgaar's shirt to get him to sit down; Skwisgaar did, draping an arm around Toki's shoulders and extending his legs in front of him. Toki mirrored that, bumping one of Skwisgaar's feet (he was wearing studded leather boots again) with his own (Toki was in simple black-and-white checkered Vans). Skwisgaar bumped back, and they turned it into a game, getting aggressive with it.

"I don't know, the guys next door are always placing another one every couple of weeks," Toki said, dropping his head to Skwisgaar's shoulder. Skwisgaar brushed some of Toki's hair behind his ear with his free hand, then allowed his own head to fall on Toki's. "Roll me a joint, Pickle."

Pickles did what he told, making one on the bed. He was using an old essay of his for their history class as rolling paper; Toki's history project alibi made this amusing to him. Pickles got off of Nathan's bed and handed the joint to Toki unlighted. Toki was about to complain when Skwisgaar pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit it for him. "You ams goingks to share, ja?" he said, hand cupped around the blunt and lighter.

"Of course," Toki said, and he smoked some then passed it to Skwisgaar. They nuzzled noses while passing, and then Skwisgaar turned away so as to bring the blunt to his mouth. Toki watched him do it and decided that Skwisgaar was the most elegant smoker he had ever encountered.

Nathan finished organization and walked to his bed, sitting beside Pickles. "You two are making me sick. Like, seriously. Stop it." He looked at Skwisgaar and Toki and made a face of disgust.

Toki stuck his tongue at Nathan. "Sorry," he said. Nathan rolled his eyes and turned to Pickles, engaging him in a (pointlessly) hushed conversation about something uninteresting related to Charles and Abigail. Toki himself said (pointlessly) hushed to Skwisgaar, "I'm not really sorry."

"Nots am I neither," Skwisgaar said, and he passed the joint back to Toki, who readily inhaled.

They passed their time in their pairs, Skwisgaar and Toki completely stoned and paying attention to only each other after half an hour of passing the blunt back and forth, Nathan and Pickles working on Nathan's homework (which meant Pickles giving the answers to Nathan as he wrote them down) to maintain Nathan's measly GPA and thus spot on the football team. Dick and Murderface showed up around four; they immediately sent Dick, whose jaw dropped at the sight of Skwisgaar, out on a Dimmu Burger run. Pickles even wrote him a very specific list with their orders, including Skwisgaar's, on the back of Nathan's dismal chemistry notes and provided Dick with no money to pay for the food.

"That'sch kind of rude of you guysch," Murderface said as he immediately went to Nathan's computer and sat in his chair with his boots propped up on his desk. He began to browse music blogs, one arm hanging off the chair behind him.

"Oh, like you're one to tell us about what's rude," Pickles said, eying Murderface's boots. He returned to helping Nathan with his homework, which still wasn't done, placing an arm on his bicep as he pointed to an error Nathan had made in a math problem.

Toki and Skwisgaar barely took count of this conversation as they continued to make eyes at and run their fingers over each other. Skwisgaar played with the ends of Toki's hair and told him he had too many split-ends and needed a trim; Toki told him that his parents wouldn't take him to a hairdresser and the guys didn't want to wait around for him; Skwisgaar vowed to take Toki to one. Toki unbuttoned and buttoned the top three buttons of Skwisgaar's shirt several times, attempting to find out which he liked better, and decided that Skwisgaar looked best with a plunging neckline. Pickles said, passively and from Nathan's bed, that it made Skwisgaar look like a douche, but Skwisgaar and Toki barely heard him as they were too busy French kissing beneath the window sill.

Dick returned with their food and shelled out the individual orders to all of them, beginning with Murderface and ending with Skwisgaar and Toki. When he handed Skwisgaar the bag containing his burger and fries he squatted in front of the other boy, pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, and blinked at him like he couldn't quite believe he was real. "What're you doing here, you Swedish god of a guitar player?" He asked, finally.

"Hanginks out with my boysfriend and his friends," Skwisgaar said. He reached into the Dimmu burger bag and pulled out a single fry, placing it in his mouth. Toki was halfway through his hamburger already, suffering a serious case of the munchies.

"You two are-" Dick gestured between Skwisgaar and Toki fast with his hand, still blinking hard. "Seriously? That's great, I'm happy for you! Please let me produce your band." He sounded pleading at that point, grabbing two fistfuls of Skwisgaar's shirt and shaking him back and forth, looking him straight in the eyes. At this, Toki sent a _what the actual fuck are you doing there Dick _face towards the two of them. Dick's desperation had even attracted the attention of the other guys; Nathan and Murderface had their heads in their hands, and Pickles looked smug and amused.

"I ams tellingks you," Skwisgaar said through gritted teeth as Dick continued to shake him, hand curled around the Dimmu Burger bag, "_talks to Mark. _Now lets go of mes!"

Dick let Skwisgaar gp as instructed and picked himself up. He sat on the corner of Nathan's computer desk by Murderface's boots, one knee folded over the other and hands folded on top of that. His order had been with Murderface's, and Murderface handed Dick his salad. He unpackaged it and began to eat, poking around in the plastic container in a manner similar to a wounded baby bird.

"Scheriouschly, Dick, man, buddy, you can't be so _deschperate_," Murderface said to Dick, fat fingers wrapped around an even fatter burger and mouth full of a half-chewed bite. He was watching a video of a gastric bypass as he ate. Dick shot a look at Murderface that could burn a mere mortal and picked his salad apart in front of him.

"I can't eat and watch them," Nathan said, pointing with his burger at Skwisgaar and Toki; Skwisgaar was feeding Toki his fries, one by one. "C'mon, Pickles, let's go downstairs." Nathan and Pickles collected their things and left, leaving the door open. Dick and Murderface stayed put, actively not speaking to each other, Dick with his legs uncrossed and salad in his lap. Murderface's bypass video ended and he opened up one depicting a knee surgery as he moved towards his second burger.

"Ams dis what you guys does normallsky?" Skwisgaar asked as he stopped feeding Toki fries and instead fed them to himself. Toki replaced fries with milkshake, chocolatey and delicious.

"Pretty much, yep," Toki said between drags of milkshake. "Sometimes we goes places, but it ams pretty much all de same." He exaggerated the last part of his sentence in a singsong voice and took another swing of milkshake. He was very, very stoned, stoned to his core, and as a result of that extremely complacent. Judging by the hand rubbing his shoulder and the way he was eating in flourished movements, Skwisgaar was in a similar state.

"Cool," Skwisgaar said. "Me and Mark and dem, we just practices. So fuckings boringks."

"Oh noes, I am never bored here," Toki said, shaking his head and thus wiggling the straw of the milkshake back and forth. "And if I am, it's a good type of bored."

"Dere is a good types of bored?" Skwisgaar readjusted himself so that he was leaning into Toki; Toki put both of his legs across Skwisgaar's thighs so they could sit more comfortably at an angle. Skwisgaar was almost done with his food, and Toki just had the milkshake, both hands cupped around it. He spoke around the straw.

"Yes, dere ams a bored where it ams like you ams happy to be bored because it ams so good," Toki explained, nodding along with his words. "Where you ams in a happy place!" At this point he was more Norwegian than English, voice high and heavy with accent, grammar terrible. He didn't even notice.

"I sees!" Skwisgaar said. Then he took Toki's milkshake away from him, placing it on the windowsill above them, and silenced Toki's whine of protest with his own mouth. Toki fell to the ground, head near one leg of Nathan's computer desk and arms wrapped around it, holding onto it as Skwisgaar supported himself with both arms and kissed Toki fully.

"Jeschusch Chrischt that isch _dischguschting_!" Murderface yelped, and he leapt backwards out of his chair, body slamming into Dick's legs. Dick's tumbled off the desk and into Murderface's flailing arms; Murderface shrieked and threw Dick out of them. Dick slammed into the desk, rattling it and causing Toki and Skwisgaar to stop momentarily and pay attention to the scene; they deemed it uninteresting and went back to each other. Murderface and Dick both fled the room, both howling, Murderface in abhorrence and Dick in agony. Skwisgaar and Toki continued to make out, grinding into each other and enjoying themselves. Skwisgaar went to the button of Toki's pants and Toki stopped him, apologetic, but Skwisgaar didn't seem to mind.

Dick and Murderface returned eventually; at this point Toki and Skwisgaar had stopped making out and were once more sitting under the windowsill wrapped up in each other and conversing idly. Toki was growing sleepy but needed to wake up, as according to Dick and Murderface the party was beginning in forty-five minutes and they had to get ready. Toki didn't have to get ready; all he had to do was stand up and walk out, but Dick, Murderface and Pickles required prep time. Toki listened to and laughed at their squabble over the upstairs (and vastly superior) bathroom which Pickles won by Nathan's intervention: "Pickles gets it. Sorry guys." Dick and Murderface stomped and complained their way down the stairs. Nathan came into his room, changed his shirt, and flopped onto his bed, already exhausted by his company.

When everybody was finished, suitably dressed and prepared, they filed themselves into their respective cars. Dick and Murderface left in Dick's car ahead of Nathan, Pickles, Toki and Skwisgaar, who poured themselves into their previous positions in Nathan's truck. Pickles had more weed and passed a joint back and forth between himself, Skwisgaar and Toki, while Nathan drank Coke out of a classic Coke bottle. He claimed it felt like beer and made him feel better about being the designated driver.

They arrived at Charles's house, or mansion, as it was more fit to be called. Charles was rich with absentee parents and thus Charles often threw uncharacteristically large, amazing, proud and brash bashes. He had an extensive, well manicured wall with a huge driveway; by the time they pulled up, ten minutes early, there were at least ten cars lined up outside. The door was wide open, a portal to a world of teenage debauchery, and Toki stopped feeling sleepy so much as excited. He had a good feeling about the night, Skwisgaar's presence beside him only amplifying his mood and premonition. Nathan parked on the curb outside of Charles's house and the group got out of the car, Toki and Skwisgaar holding hands and walking behind Nathan and Pickles. They passed Dick's car on the trek to Charles's front door. Then, they walked through the portal.

Charles's foyer had a high ceiling and sensible beige walls, decorated in a minimalist fashion that showed off how fucking rich they were, small pieces of expensive art the only decoration. Nathan and Pickles went for the kitchen, which was straight ahead, and from Toki's past experiences where Charles (and probably Abigail, by extension) would be greeting guests. Toki had been to a few of Charles's parties before-not as many as Nathan and Pickles, but a good few-and knew his way around pretty well. He led Skwisgaar to the living room, where there were a few people that Toki recognized but didn't know hanging around and drinking. Toki watched one guy pop some pills and then share some with the girl he was with. Toki and Skwisgaar sat down on the couch, melding together as one being sharing one cushion and pressed against an arm. The living room was spacious with two doors, one that led to a hallway and one that led from a foyer. An unlit fireplace was the centerpiece of the room. Void of wood, charcoal and ash, it currently housed a cooler of drinks.

"Does you go to parties often?" Toki asked Skwisgaar. Their hands were folded together in their shared laps,

"Ja," Skwisgaar said. They were talking softly, only to each other; there was not yet music, and there would not be until some more people arrived. The room was filling in around them and Toki saw a steady stream walk through the foyer, most to the kitchen and then around into the other entrance into the living room that led through the hallway. People grabbed drinks from the fireplace cooler and made conversation with each other, occasionally exchanging pills or pieces of paper, following and departing.

"Ams dey good parties, though?" Toki asked. He pecked Skwisgaar on the lips. He was still fairly stoned, but it was fading around the edges, leaving room for rational thought to gradually edge creep back in.

Skwisgaar shrugged. "A good party ams one I don't remember," Skwisgaar said, "so I ams not knowingks." This somehow made sense to Toki, and he smiled as he licked Skwisgaar's lips open, moved his tongue inside his mouth, and did not remove it for quite some time.

Normally at parties Toki would find the stoners and get stoned (or even more stoned) with them until Nathan and Pickles wanted to leave. He would hang out with Murderface and play wingman for him as he repeatedly got shot down and increased in lecherous behavior towards women way out of his league, all the while sneering at ones he deemed beneath him who were still above him. Toki would watch drama with passivity and maybe kick a dude in the stomach a few times if he looked at him funny or elbowed him in their shared struggle to navigate a throng of partygoers. Normally at parties Toki had a pretty average time. This time, at this party, though, Toki spent it with a tongue down his throat and freedom to do so since nobody gave a fuck. Music started, loud and obnoxious house and crunk, that at first made Skwisgaar recoil from the kiss due to repulsion, and then they picked up a rhythm that matched that of the music and everything was okay. Everything was okay.

They separated at some point and started talking to each other, Skwisgaar's elbow on the couch and head in his hand while Toki played with his hair, and Toki observed some very interesting things. Charles's house had filled to a bursting point; Toki didn't know how Charles had a monopoly on his high school's population and then some, but he did, and the crowd of people was as impressive as ever. There were familiar and unfamiliar faces and bodies pressed into each other, moving with the music, talking, drinking, yelling, making out.

"Nathan ams getting drunk," Toki said as he watched Nathan saunter into the room, a full red Solo cup of something sloshing down his hand. His mannerisms were that of when he was drunk and that was how Toki came to that conclusion. Much like Toki, Nathan was a sloppy drunk.

"This ams a problem?" Skwisgaar said. He craned his head to watch Nathan hit on some chick in a tight leather dress with teased black hair; Toki remembered, faintly, that her name was Lavona, and that she was one of Nathan's stalker chicks. Toki didn't know how, but Nathan had amassed a following of girls that were really into him that he mostly ignored unless he was drunk. Which he was, and he had one hand on Lavona's shoulder to steady himself as he chugged from his cup. His hand slipped to Lavona's breast, fondling her, and Lavona grinned as Nathan crumpled his cup, threw it to the ground, and followed her down the hall.

"A big one," Toki said, frowning deeply. None of this was good. "He ams the designated driver. Pickle ams going to be mad. Oh, Pickle ams going to be _real _mad."

"I guess it ams a problem, then," Skwisgaar said, and he sighed.

Toki watched the people around him. There was another couple on the couch, this one heterosexual, the girl straddling the guy's lap and his hands curled around her exposed hipbones. They were the ones who had shared pills earlier and they were totally out of it, eyes glazed over and moaning to each other. People came and went through the living room, dancing in the open space between couch and fireplace, grinding on each other or the air. Somebody was passed out leaning on one side of the fireplace but Toki couldn't make out who it was or anything about them, really, most of their body hidden by the fireplace. Toki saw Charles only once, coming in through the foyer to check up on the living room when somebody pushed someone else to the ground and almost began a fight. It was weird, to sit and watch a party happen instead of participating in the events, but it was not unwelcome.

Pickles came looking for Nathan half an hour after he disappeared into the hallway with Lavona. Pickles sat in front of Skwisgaar and Toki, eyes half-lidded. He had a bottle of beer in one hand and a lot of grass (the actual kind that grows in the yard) in the other. He was wearing the kitty ears from earlier and his shirt was barely on, bunched around his neck with his arms free. "You see Nathan?" he asked, slurring his words.

"Yeah, he went into the hallway with Lavona," Toki said. He bit his lip. "Pickle..."

"What?" Pickles shouted the word and lurched forward, but balanced himself. "What're you Pickling me for?"

"Nathan ams drunk," Skwisgaar said, as Toki couldn't bring himself to say it. Toki flinched before Pickles even reacted-it was the look on his face, disappointment before all else.

"Fuck!" Pickles shouted, and this time he didn't balance himself when he lurched, instead coming to his feet. The grass and beer bottle fell from his hand as he ran towards the hallway, the beer bottle crashing to the floor and sending glass shards and liquid everywhere, while the grass slumped and landed in a puddle of beer. Skwisgaar sneered.

"This sucks," Toki said, slumping into the couch.

"I will calls Mark in a bits," Skwisgaar said, smoothing Toki's hair. "Mark never drinks. He ams too high-strung about his shitty musics and dis girl dat broke his heart in high school. Patheticks! Anyways, I will calls him."

"Thank you," Toki said, and he kissed Skwisgaar again, but not nearly as deeply or as long. They settled into a comfortable position and remained there, talking and tracing pattern on the other's skin, passing the time.

Toki did not see Dick or Murderface once throughout the party though he knew they were there, and wondered about their location exactly one time before deciding that he really didn't give a fuck. Nathan and Pickles were, as usual, ever the more troublesome; Nathan reemerged from the hallway without Lavona, drunk to the point of utter sloppiness, involved in a shouting match with Pickles: "You're the designated driver!" "I like to have fun too! Fuck you guys!" "You're the only one who can drive!" "Fuck you guys!" "You hate Lavona!" "So!" "Charles is being weird!" "Not my problem!" so on and so forth. Toki followed it the best he could but Nathan and Pickles weaved in and out of rooms until Pickles returned to Skwisgaar and Toki and slumped to the floor in front of them again, forgetting about the shards of glass, beer and grass that he was now sitting in.

"Nathan passed out," he said, moping. He'd pulled his shirt on properly sometime during the shouting match, and this made him look all the more pathetic. Even his kitty ear crown seemed to be drooping. His face was utterly heartbreaking, sad and lonely.

"I think we ams past the point where de party and other people's drunkenness ams fun," Toki said, looking not at Pickles but at Skwisgaar. Skwisgaar nodded in agreement.

"I'll calls Mark," he said. He managed to untangle himself from Toki and get off the couch without stepping on glass, grass, beer, or Pickles, an impressive feat. He aided Toki in maneuvering the debris and then helped Pickles to his feet. Pickles allowed himself to be supported by Skwisgaar and Toki as they walked out of the house, leaving the portal to teenage debauchery and emerging into a much more quiet normalcy. They headed for the sidewalk curb, where Skwisgaar and Toki lowered Pickles down as gently as they could. Pickles's head hit his knees; he wasn't passed out exactly, but in a sad stupor. That was fine enough to Toki, who kept an eye on him as Skwisgaar wandered away to call Mark. Toki listened to Skwisgaar's end of the conversation: "Mark, I needs a favor." "What does you means? I ams de only good things about this band!" An extended period of silence, then Skwisgaar gave the address and said, "Come as fastly as you cans."

Skwisgaar made a noise of exasperation and slid his phone into his pocket, then returned to the curb. He sat at Toki's side and took one of his hand in his. They looked after Pickles, who didn't do much but loll his head about, until Mark pulled up in a van. He looked annoyed, hair mussed like he'd been sleeping and didn't bother to brush it. This was supported by his checkered pajama pants and plain black, soft-looking shirt. He also wasn't wearing shoes, which Toki was certain was illegal while driving.

"It's one in the fuckin' mornin'," Mark grumbled as Skwisgaar and Toki lifted Pickles into the passenger seat. Toki buckled him in, feeling weird for having roles reversed, and then got in the back along with Skwisgaar. They didn't bother with seatbelts for themselves.

"So the nights ams just beginningks," Skwisgaar said, smiling at Mark.

"Maybe for you delinquents," Mark said, not really even trying to say it under his breath. He began to drive and turned the radio on, a soft classic rock station floating in the air. "Where am I supposed to drop these fuckers off?" He asked; _these fuckers _were assumed to mean Pickles and Toki.

Skwisgaar looked at Toki, asking for the answer himself. Toki gave Mark the address to Nathan's house, where he told his parents he was spending the night, then settled into Skwisgaar for the rest of the ride. Mark took them to Nathan's house and waited in the car, bitching to nobody in particular, as Skwisgaar and Toki carried Pickles upstairs and tucked him into bed. Pickles had passed out fully by now and they made sure to put him on his side and place a nice glass of water and some headache pills by the bed. Toki took off his kitty-ear headband and placed it around the glass of water.

"Where ams you goingks to sleep?" Skwisgaar asked Toki in a hushed voice as Toki pulled the blankets over Pickles's body. They had removed his shirt for him, and he was scrawny and innocent under the covers, curled in a loose fetal position. Toki felt a surge of fondness for his friend, followed by utter exhaustion. Toki was completely sober by then and tired from the day's activities.

"Downstairs in de basement," Toki whispered back. He looked at Pickles one last time and then exited the room. Skwisgaar walked with him to the bottom of the stairs.

"I guesses dis is goodbyes," Skwisgaar said. He had one hand on the stair post and was leaning into Toki, close to him. He kissed him. "I doesn't wants it to be."

Toki shook his head. "Me neither," he said. "When ams I goingks to be seeingks you again?" He put a hand on Skwisgaar's arm and kissed him again, needily this time, swirling his tongue around in his mouth. He wanted Skwisgaar to stay.

"Next weekend," Skwisgaar said as he pulled back from Toki. "I will meets you here. Friday. Four o'clock. Your parents ams not allowingks you to have a cell phone."

Toki shook his head and swallowed down the anger that spiked inside him at being reminded of this fact.

"So I ams guesesingks you ams not knowingks your friends' numbers," Skwisgaar continued. He sighed and rubbed his temples. "Your friends, dey ams weirds."

Toki nodded. "I knows," he said. They were still speaking softly so as to not wake the sleeping members of the household, and it felt as strange as the rest of the night, but Toki liked it. "But they ams my friends, and I loves them." He let out a long exhalation, blowing a piece of hair away from his face and feeling the extent to which he was exhausted in every part of his body.

Skwisgaar ran a thumb down Toki's jawline and then leaned in to kiss him one last time. "Whats an oddsical night," he said. He took Toki in a tight hug, pressing their bodies together. Toki rested his head against Skwisgaar and held onto him. He really did want him to stay.

"I had a good time," Toki said into the fabric of Skwisgaar's shirt. Skwisgaar, still holding Toki, leaned back and looked him over. He smiled a fond little smile.

"Me too. Well, goodbyes, Toki. Sleep tights. Don't let de bed bugs bite." And with that. Skwisgaar was gone.

Toki locked the door after him and put a frozen pizza in the oven. He propped himself up on the kitchen counter and dozed until the smell of pizza was too strong to ignore and pulled him from his slumber. He carried the pizza down with him to the basement and ate the whole thing without cutting it as he watched television, first the news, then a sitcom that was sort of funny. He briefly considered trying to jack off again and desired that he was too tired to, then stretched out on the couch underneath a soft quilt and an even softer pillow, both of which he found in the closet. He was stripped down to his boxers, hoodie, shorts shoes and socks all stranded between the couch and television, and the combined softness of blanket, couch and pillow felt heavenly. He finally fell asleep with a full stomach to a children's cartoon on Disney channel, arms wrapped around the remote. What an oddsical day indeed.


End file.
